During a recent interview with Lex Fridman, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revealed he profited more than $4 million from the $25,000 investment he made into Dogecoin (DOGE) in 2016.
The Multimillion-Dollar DOGE Investment
The hype surrounding the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin has pushed the cryptocurrency’s price sky high due to speculation on the asset.
Numerous social media celebs and influencers have been talking about the crypto asset, including billionaire Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. Coinbase, arguably the largest earning cryptocurrency exchange, even listed the meme asset during its surge.
The Dogecoin project has made several early investors millionaires, but Ethereum’s founder has recently described his DOGE investment as one of his best decisions.
Buterin told Lex Friedman that he invested before Doge gained as much popularity as it does now. Additionally, he admitted that at the time, he was not too sure about his decision to invest $25,000 in a cryptocurrency that wasn’t worth much and had no appeal besides the dog logo.
However, that changed when Elon Musk started talking about Dogecoin, driving enthusiasts to the memecoin.
“That ended up being one of the best investments I’ve ever made. I just sold half of the DOGE and I got $4.3 million”
Selflessness Of Cryptocurrency
In the same way, he co-created Ethereum as a platform to support others, Buterin always stays true to his nature as he’s a frequent donator of numerous charities. Every single penny Buterin made off his Dogecoin investment was forwarded to GiveDirectly, an East African non-profit organization.
“I immediately called up my friends and told them to drop everything and scramble, and I sold half of the DOGE, and I got $4.3 million, donated the profits to GiveDirectly, and a few hours after I did this, the price dropped back from around $0.07 to $0.04.”
Some of Vitalik’s other donations:
- $763,000 of Ether to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) in 2017
- $2.4 million of Ether to the SENS Research Foundation in 2018
- $1.14 billion worth of 50,693,552,078,053 SHIBA coins to India’s Crypto Covid relief fund in 2021
- $336 million worth of 430 trillion Dogelon Mars ($ELON) to the Foundation
Ethereum And Dogecoin Collaboration
The Ethereum co-founder also stated that he very much likes the idea of collaboration between the assets.
“If DOGE wants to somehow bridge to Ethereum, and then people can trade DOGE thousands of times a second inside of loopring, then that would be amazing.”
He hopes to achieve beneficial improvements for both coins including much faster and cheaper transactions. Another person who also agrees with this statement is none other than Elon Musk himself.
Musk is not only a vocal supporter of the currency but also very actionable personnel. Not too long ago, the billionaire proposed some improvements for Dogecoin, claiming to have met with DOGE developers. Musk said on Twitter: “Ideally, Doge speeds up block time 10X, increases block size 10X & drops fee 100X. Then it wins hands down.”
About The Auther
Martin is a crypto and a gaming enthusiast. He loves to discuss adult topics about investments during the day and turn into a teenage gamer at night. ETH Address: 0x1bE1C00d149944c82DF0DbE21235E0f061C53BAb
