Vitalik Buterin Moves $29 Million Worth of Ethereum—Here's Why

In brief

• Buterin converted 13,217 ETH to wETH, reducing his balance from 241,000 to 227,268 ETH worth approximately $498.5 million.
• The move supports the Ethereum Foundation’s austerity measures; Buterin previously sold ETH to Mike Novogratz for just $0.99 in 2015.
• Ethereum has fallen almost 30% in a week, now trading at $2,090; Buterin has criticized its layer-2 roadmap, calling for “a new path.”

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has moved 14,000 ETH out of his wallets and has sent $500,000 to his Kanro charity, according to on-chain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence. Buterin said last week that he would be withdrawing $44.7 million worth of his own funds to support the Ethereum Foundation as it enters a period of “mild austerity.” At the time, he moved the funds from one of his Gnosis wallets to another of his wallets. The $44.7 million transaction was executed on Friday, but the total value of his ETH holdings didn’t materially change until this week when he converted 13,217 ETH from that second Gnosis wallet to Wrapped Ethereum, or wETH, that’s worth approximately $29 million.

Of that, $2.3 million ETH has been sold and $500 million went to Kanro, a biotech firm he formed in 2023.  That means in the past two days, the Ethereum founder’s balance has gone from roughly 241,000 to 227,268 ETH, worth approximately $498.5 million at the time of writing. ETH still makes up the bulk of his $532,878,813.74 holdings, according to Arkham. In 2021, Buterin’s holdings swelled to more than $1 billion. At the time, he held 333,520 ETH and the token had recently reached what was then an all-time high of $3,188. There have been other instances of Buterin selling portions of his holdings. In 2015, he sold half a million ETH to Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz in an over-the-counter transaction. He sold each ETH for just $0.99, according to Novogratz, who recounted the sale in an interview in 2020.

In late 2024, Buterin strongly rebuffed speculation that he’d sold some of his ETH, and pointed out that the Ethereum Foundation’s wallets showed outgoing transfers because it was sending payments to “researchers and devs.” As of Wednesday morning, Ethereum was changing hands for around $2,090 after having lost 3.9% in the past day. It’s now 29.9% lower than it was this time last week, according to data from crypto price aggregator CoinGecko.

There have recently been some discussions on the ongoing role of L2s in the Ethereum ecosystem, especially in the face of two facts:

• L2s’ progress to stage 2 (and, secondarily, on interop) has been far slower and more difficult than originally expected
• L1 itself is scaling,…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 3, 2026

Meanwhile, Buterin has been critical of the roadmap for some layer-2 networks and yesterday advocated for “a new path” for Etherum that’s less reliant on them. Layer-2 networks have been touted as “scaling” networks that process transactions—often faster and for lower costs—before sending verification back to mainnet. But now Buterin said, “The original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense.”