 
 
In January, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, allocated 17,000 Ether — worth around $45 million at the time — to fund privacy-focused initiatives. Just a month later, his wallet holdings have decreased by more than the targeted amount, while Ethereum’s native token has shed more than one-third of its value.
Buterin now seems to have ended his latest wave of ETH sales, based on data from blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain. Is a comeback for the second-largest crypto on the horizon?
Buterin Halts ETH Sales
Data from Arkham Intelligence indicates that wallets linked to Vitalik Buterin contained roughly 241,000 ETH at the beginning of February. That total has since dropped to around 224,000 ETH following a consistent stream of transfers from his Gnosis Safe throughout the month.
The transactions were carried out via the decentralized exchange aggregator CoW Protocol, with the holdings split into multiple smaller swaps rather than sold in a single large trade.
In total, the Canadian-born developer has offloaded 19,326 ETH, generating roughly $39.4 million in proceeds. The tokens were sold at an average price of about $2,037 each.
 
In late January, Buterin characterized the allocation as his “personal contribution to austerity” during a phase when the Ethereum Foundation is focusing on long-term sustainability and core protocol development.
At the time, the ETH creator explained that the funds would be gradually invested over several years to develop an “open-source, secure, and verifiable full stack” of software and hardware spanning areas such as finance, communications, governance, operating systems, secure hardware, and biotechnology.
Notably, the ETH sales have taken place alongside a 32% decline in the token’s price over the past month, bringing it to roughly $2,041 as of press time, according to CoinGecko data.
With the high-profile founder now halting his latest tranche of sales, the Ethereum community is cautiously optimistic. Still, questions linger over whether the token can stage a meaningful recovery in the near term.