Ethereum co-founder donates over $1 billion for COVID relief in India

The COVID-19 pandemic has been raging for over a year now, with multiple waves being seen in various countries all over the world. The case count and death tolls continue to rise, and while countries such as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and others look like having come through the worst of the crisis, India, which is the second-most populous country in the world, is in the middle of a deadly second wave of the virus. The country has been posting positive case numbers of over 300,000 for weeks now, with daily deaths also hovering around 3,000-4,000, and these are just the official government statistics, with the true numbers expected to be around 10-15x of this. The country is battling through a chronic shortage of medical oxygen, vaccines, medicines and hospital beds as the already poor medical infrastructure is collapsing, and this situation has led to many people from around the country, and the world, trying to help out through donations and charitable efforts. One of the most notable philanthropic efforts in this regard, and in fact ever, has come from Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of the Ethereum cryptocurrency, as he donated over $1 billion to the India Covid Relief Fund in the form of various cryptocurrencies.

Buterin’s donations came in the form of the Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogelon (ELON) and Akita Inu (AKITA) coins, which he had received as gifts from the creators of these coins. These tokens have grown in popularity over the last few months due to the staggering rally in Dogecoin’s price, and all of these are essentially joke or meme cryptocurrencies, with no real-life value. However, they have been increasing in price by quite a lot this year, and so Buterin’s donation has significant value. This is also not the first time that he has donated to the fund, as he had sent around $600,000 worth of Ether and Maker tokens to the fund in early April. This fund has been set up by Sandeep Nailwal, who is an Indian tech entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and COO of Polygon, which is a protocol that aggregates scalable solutions on Ethereum in a multi-chain system.

Ethereum, which was Buterin’s brainchild and the subject of a white paper by him which eventually led to the currency’s launch, has emerged as one of the most sought-after cryptocurrencies today, owing to the existence of smart contracts on its blockchain, as well as several other features and advantages over the likes of Bitcoin. The upcoming Ethereum 2.0 update will bring several more improvements to the network, and many crypto analysts and experts believe that Ethereum will surpass Bitcoin in terms of price and market capitalization in the not-too-distant future, due to the better real-world applications for this token and its blockchain. In India Ethereum has proved to be extremely useful across various sectors and industries, and we have already seen its utility in several areas, of which online gambling is one of the best and most relevant examples. The Indian online gambling sector is one that has embraced crypto in a big manner, and Ethereum is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in this space. Online gambling and casino operators offer users the option to place bets through cryptocurrencies, and thus Ethereum blackjack sites in India have been all the rage, as well as other popular casino games that can now be played online and through cryptocurrency betting. All of this has led to the price of Ethereum shooting up in 2021, which has helped increase Buterin’s personal fortune as well. He has also donated generously to multiple other charities and programs that are focusing on several different areas, and it is therefore quite encouraging to see that this young entrepreneur is trying to give back wherever he can.