Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin made more than $ 4 million from Dogecoin thanks to Elon Musk

June
10, 2021

4 min read

Last May, VitaliK Buterin became the youngest billionaire in the world at just 27 years old. Of course, much of that is due to his keen eye for investing. The creator of the digital currency Ethereum (ETH) revealed that in 2016 he invested $ 25,000 in the cryptocurrency meme Dogecoin (DOGE) , and made more than $ 4 million in profits thanks to Elon Musk’s tweets.

During a podcast by MIT researcher Lex Fridman, Buterin commented that he was impressed by Dogecoin and gambled on it impulsively, even without a goal in mind.

“I remember thinking, ‘How can I explain to my mother that I invested $ 25,000 in DOGE?’ The only interesting thing about this cryptocurrency is the dog’s logo. But of course it was one of the best investments I have ever made, ” said the Ethereum co-founder .

So it was. With the rise in the price of Dogecoin , Vitalic made $ 4.3 million after selling half of its tokens. This sum was donated to the non-profit organization GiveDirectly.

The ‘Musk Effect’ benefited Vitalic Buterin

Of course, when making the purchase of cryptocurrencies inspired by the famous ‘doge’ meme, a Shiba Inu dog also known as ‘Cheems’, Vitalik Buterin had no idea that another tycoon would boost his capitalization at the tip of tweets. We are talking about Elon Musk , who caused a rise of almost 800% in the price of Dogecoin in a single day.

^{Source: CoinMarketCap.com .}

Despite Musk’s influence on the price of DOGE and other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin , the Russian programmer believes that there is no “sophisticated malice” behind it. He thinks that maybe the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is “just a person who likes dogs .”

It is well known that Musk invested around $ 1.5 billion in Bitcoin through Tesla , and that for a time he received the cryptocurrency as payment, although he backed out a few weeks ago.

In this regard, Buterin says that Musk’s companies will have to adopt ETH sooner or later. ” Bitcoin is a blockchain for money, and Ethereum was created from the beginning as a general-purpose blockchain,” he noted.

Beyond his optimism about the future of digital currencies, Vitalik Buterin has stated that he is aware that everything could be a bubble that will burst at any moment , if it has not already done so. Recall that Bitcoin has lost about half of its value in the last two months, dragging the entire ‘crypto’ ecosystem with it.

In the meantime, the 27-year-old billionaire will continue to have fun with his investments, which will hopefully help add a few million more to his already juicy fortune.