It should be noted that following the activity of various celebrity cryptocurrencies is easy enough. First of all, they were disclosed earlier, so now anyone can track what is happening with them using various blockchain browsers.

It is also possible to identify the owner of a particular address by using ENS domains, which allow the use of short named addresses to replace long combinations of public 0x addresses.

In particular, Vitalik’s address is marked as vitalik.eth, which can also be seen in his Twitter signature.

Vitalik Buterin’s Twitter signature

Accordingly, typing this word on Etherscan allows you to see the associated addresses, their balances and transactions. Here, for example, is the balance of the address vitalik.eth.

Vitalik Buterin’s wallet

And here are recent transactions with it.

Transactions from Vitalik Buterin’s address

In this context, it is not surprising that various transactions of famous people in the blockchain community become public quite quickly.

Has Vitalik Buterin sold ethers

According to Decrypt representatives, a Vitalik Buterin-affiliated address got rid of 3,000 ethers worth the equivalent of $3.75 million this weekend. The coin transactions were made on the decentralised exchange Uniswap, with all of the cryptocurrency eventually converted to stabelcoins.

This was reported by a Twitter account under the nickname Lookonchain in this post. He also attached the following screenshot to the tweet.

An image of Vitalik allegedly selling 3,000 ethers

The transaction was generally carried out within 24 hours of the news of the bankruptcy filing of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the details of which are outlined here. As a result, many users began to panic. There were two reasons for this:

• FTX’s failure opened the door to further market collapse. Well, such thoughts usually easily convince traders and investors to exit all positions in anticipation of a niche collapse – and even more so for newcomers;
• Vitalik Buterin is an authority in the digital asset industry that one wants to copy in one way or another. In addition, he is well known for his ability to sell crypto at its peak.

As a result, the entry provoked a short-term panic among traders, who took it upon themselves to wait for a further collapse of the coins. The wallet balance on top of that was quite impressive, which also added to the credibility of this version.

The balance of the address that allegedly belongs to Vitalik Buterin

More importantly, there were previous transactions between this address and Vitalik Buterin's verified wallet, which also hints at a connection between the addresses.

However, the data ended up being false. If you go to the specified address and examine the list of transactions, the same transactions are displayed without the corresponding “Vitalik Buterin” tag, as it was in the screenshot.

Transactions on the Uniswap decentralised exchange in question

As noted by Twitter users, in this case, such a tag was added by the author of the screenshot, who marked the address accordingly.

However, the news was then commented by an acquaintance of Vitalik Buterin. The person in question is Evan Van Ness, a developer in the Etherium community. He directly asked Vitalik Buterin if the address was related to Buterin, to which he received a negative answer. Here is his quote.

I posed the question to Vitalik Buterin. He confirmed that it wasn’t his address, so the whole thing was fake news.

Evan went on to voice additional details.

Either I am lying here or Vitalik is. If I do, Vitalik will easily retract the information with a tweet. In that case, I would lose a large part of my own reputation. If Vitalik is lying, it is the stupidest reason in the world to lie. The exception might be your thinking that his account has been hacked.

The Block’s spokesman Larry Cermak responded to the event and was seriously baffled by what was going on. Here’s his rejoinder.

I will be extremely surprised if it’s not him. This wallet received 12 thousand ether in seventeen separate transactions from Vitalik Buterin’s known address (0x1db), and sent 600 ETH to the same address in six transactions. Then received another 600 ETH and sent 3.7 thousand ethers to Vitalik’s other address (0x0cfb).

Vitalik Buterin

Evan Van Ness responded by saying that he asked Vitalik directly and received a negative answer. Larry continues.

I’m not claiming he’s lying, however the possibility is there. Addresses so closely interacting are unlikely to be linked, but it will never be completely obvious. However, from my experience it should be.

Users have also suggested that this address could belong to Vitalik’s father Dmitry Buterin, who is closely connected to the cryptocurrency world and actively investing. In that case, these transactions can be explained.


Of course, there can be no questions about the use of cryptocurrencies, as these assets are owned by people who have the right to conduct any actions. However, Vitalik Buterin's drain of a few thousand Ethers could well provoke investor panic and additional market collapse - at least given the current sentiment amidst the FTX collapse.


Etherium creator Vitalik Buterin


We believe that this situation was not as harmless as it may seem. Still, someone deliberately or accidentally tagged a certain address with the tag "Vitalik Buterin" and ran the story on Twitter, highlighting the average value of its owner's airtime sales. Perhaps this was done just to collapse the market under an already open short position.

Be that as it may, the bottom line is clear. Vitalik has no need to get rid of his ETH so cheaply yet, and the real owner of the address could be the developer's father. So this is yet another reminder not to make quick financial decisions in response to popular tweets.


What do you think of the situation? Share your opinion in our millionaire cryptochat. Discuss other important topics there as well.

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