On Monday, a wallet belonging to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin (vitalik.eth) transferred approximately $1 million (600 ETH) to Coinbase, initially reported by crypto cybersecurity group PeckShieldAlert.
Buterin Also Pays Back RAI Tokens
Buterin, according to Etherscan and blockchain data analysis firm Lookonchain, revealed that Buterin also happened to repay 251,000 Rai Reflex Index (RAI) tokens on Maker and withdrew approximately $1.6 million (1,000 ETH) just hours before he moved the ETH over to Coinbase.
RAI is an Ethereum-backed stablecoin that launched in 2021 from then blockchain startup Reflexer Labs, which isn’t pegged to any fiat currency. Its monetary policy is managed through an on-chain, autonomous controller that allows for the digital asset to maintain its own price stability without being pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Buterin’s Ethereum wallet, however, is still holding around $6.5 million, according to Etherscan.
While there seems to be a number of theories as to why Buterin made this transfer, one of the theories that really sticks out surrounds Coinbase’s new layer-2 blockchain, Base, which launched earlier this month and is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain.
Having said that, it’s hard not to look at that and not wonder what this means for Ether, as investors are also turning closer attention to Bitcoin and Ordinals.
Over the weekend, a number of major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, continued to remain fragile. According to TradingView and CoinTelegraph Markets Pro, BTC experienced a loss of 11 percent. This comes after last week’s significant drop by BTC from $29,000 to $25,500. It currently sits at around $26,000 as of press time.
ETH, however, which suffered a 10% decline over the last seven days, seemed to increase slightly within the last 24 hours, trading at $1,700 as of press time.
Hopefully with the days to come, we will know more behind Buterin’s decision in transferring that kind of ETH volume over to Base.
