Vitalik: I didn't expect the SHIB donation to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, otherwise I would have made a different decision

On October 29, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reflected on his experience investing in DOGE and donating to SHIB during an interview on the Silicon Valley 101 podcast. He revealed that he had spent $25,000 to buy DOGE, which later increased in value to over $10 million.

He also recalled that the SHIB project team had transferred half of the total token supply to his public wallet. He sold part of the tokens, exchanging them for approximately $70 million worth of ETH, but due to insufficient market liquidity, he still held a large amount of remaining tokens, which he later donated to an organization fighting COVID-19 in India and the Future of Life Institute (FLI).

He initially thought that the recipients could cash out a maximum of over $20 million, but the amount reached several hundred million dollars, far exceeding expectations. He stated that if he had foreseen this outcome at the time, he would have made very different decisions.