Vitalik Buterin moves 400 Ether to Railgun amid ETH price surge

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin transfers 400 ETH (approx. worth $1.05 million) to the privacy-focused crypto mixer Railgun. The motive behind this move remains unclear, but it’s stirring interest as Ether has managed to gain by around 4% over the last 7 days outperforming Bitcoin (BTC).

Ether gets back on track after printing red indexes in the past few months. The second biggest crypto has recorded a decline of 23% and 28% in the last 30 days and 90 days, respectively.

Vitalik makes a suspicious railgun move

As per the data shared by Arkham, Vitalik Buterin moved 400 Ether to the new address beginning with 0x1810. He even moved just one ETH to the same address yesterday and then deposited 0.998 ETH into the mixer Railgun.

This isn’t Buterin’s first interaction with Railgun as he’s transferred 662 ETH (approx. worth $2 million) over the past 10 months. Earlier, Ether co-founder said that Railgun can effectively prevent malicious actors and protect user privacy. A vocal advocate for privacy tools, his continued use of the tool highlights his commitment to enhancing user privacy in the crypto space.

The crypto community is closely monitoring Buterin’s moves, especially following his recent transfer of $500K in ETH to an unknown address.

Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin) just transferred another 400 $ETH ($1.05M) into the mixer #Railgun.

Vitalik previously mentioned that Railgun is an effective way to safeguard user's privacy ????

And over the past 10 months, he has continuously transferred 662 $ETH ($1.91M) in… https://t.co/YtfNBIjIEK pic.twitter.com/V7NUReaat9

— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) August 19, 2024

However, the latest movement came in when Ether managed to print a green index in the 7-day period. ETH price surged by 2% in the week, while Bitcoin declined marginally. The second biggest crypto is trading at an average price of $2,619 at press time. Its 24-hour trading volume is up by 45% to stand at $10.2 billion.

The recent decline comes in line with a weekly net outflow of more than $14 million being recorded from the Ethereum spot ETFs. BlackRock’s ETHA and Fidelity’s FETH post an inflow of $76 million and $25 million, respectively. Grayscale’s ETHE is still bleeding as it saw an outflow of $118 million.

ETH co-founder registers a new domain

Vitalik Buterin is again up and running in the crypto industry. He recently registered a new domain, ‘dacc.eth,’ for 0.187 ETH (~$500) through the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). This domain is directly linked to his advocacy for ‘defensive accelerationism.’

He introduced the concept of d/acc in a 2023 blog post, which laid the foundation and advocated for a balanced approach to AI development. The concept suggests collaboration between humans, AI, and augmentation. He has mentioned that AI gone wrong could lead to human extinction.

Ether co-founder is set to discuss d/acc in an X Spaces event scheduled to take place on August 22 with Vincent Weisser and Skylar Weaver. This discussion is highly anticipated among digital asset investors.