You Can Mint This Ridiculous Song About Vitalik Buterin as a Free NFT

The crypto community has, historically, adorned certain male founders with reputations so epic they verge on myth—from Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto to once-wunderkind FTX founder and “crypto savior” Sam Bankman-Fried, to mysterious Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, whose multi-billion company cannot be found on a map.

Still, none of them have yet been equated, in a rousing Eurodisco dance track, to the Empire-ending, mythically well-endowed Russian mystic and holy man Rasputin. That changed this week with “V Buterin,” a rousing single inspired by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin—and the track is available as a free-to-mint NFT via Web3 music platform Sound.xyz.

Pseudonymous Sound.xyz co-founder Gigamesh and Ben Jones, co-founder of Ethereum scaling solution Optimism (who now goes, apparently, by “Weird ETH Yankovic”), have joined forces to bring the world a rousing Vitalik-themed single in the style of Boney M’s hit 1978 dance track “Rasputin.”

“Twas born a brilliant man, in Russian long ago,” the song begins. “He dropped out of school with a perfect 4.0.”

From there, the song goes on to chronicle Buterin’s meteoric rise to build the Ethereum network and earn the adoration of the crypto masses. Ample adjustments have been made from the original track, of course; whereas the “Rasputin” chorus described the shadowy Czarist hypnotist as “lover of the Russian Queen,” “V Buterin,” is now, presumably as a compliment, called “Ain’t no Charles Hoskinson.”

Why does this song exist, you might ask? On Monday, Sound.xyz announced that it’s expanding beyond the Ethereum mainnet to offer Optimism compatibility, in a move designed to lower fees for artists looking to sell songs on the blockchain and earn revenue directly from fans in the process.

To commemorate the occasion, the founders of both projects collaborated to create the “V Buterin” track and launch it, via Sound.xyz, on the Optimism network. So far, more than 27,000 free NFTs of the song have been minted, and the mint will continue until June 19.

Community members ate up the track, with one Sound.xyz user hailing the track—which praises Buterin (and his father, no less) as a “total Chad”—as a feat of music-making. 

“You are the only guy I know who can revolutionize the future of music and still lay down a massive remix,” the user told Sound.xyz co-founder Gigamesh.

“I think you might be giving me too much credit,” Gigamesh replied.