If you’re into crypto trading, you definitely saw the meteoric rise in Dogecoin prices. Thanks to the prominent support of Elon Musk, Dogecoin was able to multiply in value within a few days – with absolute uselessness at the same time. Today, the inventor of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin made headlines, as he went ahead and made Dogecoin alternatives crash. What drove the Dog Tokens crash?
Dogecoin Imitators: Shiba Inu, DogeIon, Akita Inu
Driven by this hype of a completely pointless meme coin, several more dog meme tokens have started on the Ethereum blockchain in the last few weeks. The developers of the coin speculated that investors had missed the Dogecoin Boom and would now buy their new dog tokens. It worked out. Countless dog projects (Dogelon, Aktika Inu, Shiba Inu, …) emerged within a few days, which, driven by the hype, increased in value.
The “Shiba Inu” project was particularly successful in this regard, which managed to gain massively in value within a few days and turned some early investors into millionaires overnight. Since the hype about Shiba Inu became big enough to even land within the Top 30 crypto projects, “Shiba Inu” was honored with a Binance listing only yesterday.
This listing caused criticism from a large number of experienced investors, as the hype is probably not sustainable and many new investors could buy into the pump through this listing – and lose their money. The founder of Binance, therefore, justified himself on Twitter yesterday:
Vitalik Buterin – A “Major Investor” of Dog Tokens
Even before CZ justified himself on Twitter, Binance’s official listing statement indicated that there is a person who owns more than 50% of all Shiba Inu tokens. This person is none other than Vitalik Buterin – the inventor of Ethereum. But not only Shiba Inu, Vitalik also owns Dogelon and other dog tokens in large quantities. The added value of his dog tokens (> € 7 billion) even exceeded the added value of his Ethereum tokens.
But what does Vitalik have to do with dog tokens? Did Vitalik help develop the tokens?
No, Vitalik himself has nothing to do with the tokens. Before the tokens gained in value, the developers sent 50% of all tokens to Vitalik Buterin for marketing purposes / tribute – on the assumption that he would mention the tokens and thereby increase the price or never sell them anyway. The calculation: Vitalik sells – despite its great wealth in Ether – mostly no coins.
But you thought wrong!
As you can see live on the blockchain, Vitalik is currently selling large amounts of his dog tokens for Ethereum and donating these Ethereum to projects that he finds worth supporting ( e.g. Gitcoin ). The dog tokens don’t seem to have hit Vitalik’s humor.
Because Vitalik sells such large quantities, the price of dog tokens is currently falling. The situation is still evolving at the time of writing.
Reactions to the DUMP
There is still no statement from Vitalik. Some speculate that this activity was done on purpose. See, because of the meteoric rise of those dog tokens that utilize the Ethereum blockchain, the network became very “crowded, slow and expensive”. Speculators think that Vitalik did this on purpose to clear out the “dirt” from the network. Additionally, the crypto community was divided into two parts:
- People who bought “Shiba Inu” are annoyed about the price loss. You can see on the blockchain that Vitalik receives “Fuck you Vitalik” tokens from some people
- People who think the hype about dog tokens is stupid and hope that the sale will put an end to the madness. The hype about the coins is currently causing extreme congestion on the Ethereum blockchain. Those people hope with the disappearance of such projects, the network would “relax”.
