Buterin to Use Returned $100M From SHIB Donation for COVID Projects Worldwide

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin will receive back $100 million in USDC from the more than $1 billion in Shiba Inu he previously donated to the India-focused COVID-19 relief fund, CryptoRelief, the fund's founder Sandeep Nailwal and Buterin tweeted Friday.

“We will move $100mn USDC back to Vitalik, a non-Indian, to do fast deployment in high risk/reward projects,” tweeted Nailwal, who is also the co-founder of Polygon.
CryptoRelief Update:

Have been in discussions with @VitalikButerin on how to accelerate relief efforts in India. And we have come up with a solution, we will moving $100mn USDC back to Vitalik, a non-Indian, to do fast deployment in high risk/reward projects.

Why? A thread

— Sandeep | Polygon ? (@sandeepnailwal) January 28, 2022
Last May, Buterin donated 50 trillion in SHIB tokens (worth about $1.2 billion at that time), which the creators of Shiba Inu sent him unsolicited, to the CryptoRelief fund. He burned the rest of the tokens.

Buterin tweeted that he will use the $100 million “to complement CryptoRelief’s existing excellent work with some higher-risk higher-reward covid science and relief projects worldwide.”
CryptoRelief sending $100m of the $SHIBA funds back to me. I plan to personally deploy these funds with the help of science advisors to complement CryptoRelief's existing excellent work with some higher-risk higher-reward covid science and relief projects worldwide. https://t.co/xvHxzwwdn8

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 28, 2022
The move comes as the Indian government is gearing up to present the nation’s budget on Feb. 1. The country’s lawmakers have been weighing new crypto regulations.
Nailwal hinted that the country’s crypto wariness figured in the decision to return the amount in stablecoin to Buterin.
“Considering the fund's foreign origin and laws of India, Crypto Relief followed a systematic, controlled & robust approach in disbursing funds mandated to be utilized for India,” tweeted Nailwal. “But being an Indian citizen(NRI), I have to be extra cautious in any of the projects being donated to,” he added.

By Aoyon Ashraf