Ethereum founder donates $1.14bn in cryptocurrency to Covid-hit India

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Vitalik Buterin, the Russia-based co-founder of the world's second largest cryptocurrency Ethereum, has donated 500 coins and over 50 trillion SHIB meme coin worth around $1.14 billion to the India Covid-Crypto Relief Fund, as the country grapples with the lethal second wave of the pandemic.

Sandeep Nailwal, the man behind India Covid-Crypto Relief Fund, said in a tweet late on Wednesday that they will not "do anything which hurts any community specially the retail community involved with $SHIB".

"Plz don't worry $SHIB holders," he said as the meme coin transaction created panic among some investors.

The SHIB meme coin fell more than 35 per cent after the donation.

The meme coin has garnered billions of dollars worth of investment in recent days, reports TechCrunch.

"A number of entrepreneurs including Balaji Srinivasan have donated to the India Crypto Relief Fund, which maintains a log of all the donations," the report mentioned.

Buterin is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer who is best known as one of the co-founders of Ethereum.

One Ethereum is currently priced for Rs 2.88 lakh.

Buterin became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011.

In 2013, he visited developers in other countries who shared his enthusiasm for code. He returned to Toronto later and published a white paper proposing Ethereum.

He dropped out of university in 2014 when he was awarded with a grant of $100,000 from the Thiel Fellowship, a scholarship created by venture capitalist Peter Thiel and went to work on Ethereum full-time.

In 2014, Buterin launched Ethereum.