A wallet linked to Vitalik Buterin has sold over $3 million worth of ether in the past 11 days. On Sept. 30, analytics platform Spot On Chain reported a transfer of 649 ETH (roughly $1.72 million) to cryptocurrency exchange Paxos. This transaction marked the conclusion of a series of sales triggered after the Ethereum co-founder funded the wallet in question.

Ethereum Transactions and Wallet Activities

Identified by β€œ0x556,” the wallet received 1,300 ETH ($3.21 million) on Sept. 19 from β€œ0xd04,” an Ethereum wallet said to be controlled by Buterin. Reportedly, β€œ0xd04” was funded by the crypto pioneer in 2022, when he transferred 70,000 ETH.

Notably, this wasn’t the first time these wallets have exchanged funds. According to on-chain data, β€œ0xd04” had sent 2,000 ETH, then valued at $5.265 million in September 2023, preceded by a transfer of 999 ETH valued at $2.63 million the same month.

Meanwhile, another transfer of 1701 ETH valued at $4.47 million was made the month before, bringing the total ether received to date to 5,999 ETH.

Recent Transactions

At press time, β€œ0x556” had not been labeled as Buterin’s, but in a post made on Sept. 12, 2023, Spot On Chain speculated that the Ethereum co-founder was behind the transfer of over 2,000 ETH to crypto exchange Bitstamp at the time.

@VitalikButerin transferred another 2,000 $ETH ($3.12M) from address 0xD04 to 0x556 9hrs ago. Overall, the Ethereum’s co-founder may have deposited 2,002 $ETH ($3.33M) to #Bitstamp and sold 100 $ETH for 173K $USDC since August 25 (18 days ago) via address 0x556.

While many view transfers like these as Buterin’s attempts at profiting, he has publicly denied these allegations and reiterated that he has not sold ETH for personal gains since 2018.

Community Concerns and Clarifications

Concerns emerged earlier this month as another wallet, which received 3,800 ETH from Buterin in August, was seen offloading the funds across multiple transfers. However, Buterin soon clarified that the sales were executed by a β€œbio-defense group” he funds.

In an earlier post, he added that all ETH sales funded by accounts linked to him were to either support Ethereum ecosystem projects he deems valuable or for philanthropic purposes.

Besides community concerns over these sell-offs, the Ethereum co-founder recently came under fire for wielding too much influence over Ethereum’s direction, with Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson likening Ethereum’s governance model to a β€œdictatorship” driven by Buterin’s pivotal decisions.

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