A "live on-chain" event that lasted for 23 days has finally come to an end. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has ultimately exceeded the "small goal" he initially set for himself. This time, he not only emptied his wallet but also gave the entire crypto market a lesson: what is the "correct way" for founders to reduce their holdings.
1. Unexpected Clearance: From 16,384 to 19,318
On February 26th, an "alert" from the on-chain data platform Onchain lens once again focused everyone's attention on that familiar address—Vitalik's iconic wallet "0xfeb" was empty.
● Data shows that Vitalik has completely emptied the 19,318 ETH held in that address, with a total value of about 38.7 million dollars calculated at an average selling price of $2,004. This sale action that started in early February ended with an excess of 2,884 ETH beyond the original plan.
Looking back on this operation, the timeline is actually very clear:
● End of January (Preview Stage): Vitalik publicly announced and said that the Ethereum Foundation would enter a "moderate tightening phase." In order not to make the foundation too tight, he decided to personally take on the burden and planned to sell 16,384 ETH. This money would be used to build an open-source, secure, and verifiable full-stack system, aimed at protecting personal life and public environment—simply put, doing technology and public welfare.
● February 2-25 (Execution Stage): The sale action began. The market found that Vitalik did not crash the market like retail investors but executed the sell-off in small amounts through the decentralized exchange aggregator CoW Protocol, like a savvy algorithmic trader, executing sales in batches and small amounts. By February 25, a total of 15,479 ETH had been sold, completing 94% of the original plan.
● February 26 (Final Stage): The last sprint. Lookonchain monitoring showed that Vitalik sold another 4,458 ETH in the final stage, valued at about 8.92 million dollars, and wiped out the remaining approximately 905 ETH in one go. With that, the address was emptied, and the dust settled.
2. Not Just Selling Coins: A Low-Impact "Structural Financial Management"
If you only look at the four words "Vitalik selling coins," many people's first reaction is "The bear market is here, the founder is about to run away." But looking closely at this operation method and the flow of funds, the matter is far from simple.
1. Extreme "Slippage Control"
● This nearly 40 million dollars in selling pressure was broken down over 23 days. It is estimated that the average daily sale was about 1.68 million dollars.
● What does this mean? Ethereum's global daily trading volume often reaches hundreds of millions or even tens of billions of dollars, this 1.68 million dollars only accounts for about 0.33% of the average daily trading volume. In industry terms, this amount thrown into the market makes hardly a splash.
● Vitalik did not choose to place large sell orders on centralized exchanges to create panic; instead, he quietly completed the turnover using a DEX aggregator, showing a reverence for liquidity, which is indeed characteristic of an experienced player.
2. The "Great Shift" of Funds
● Where did the money from the sales go? This is a more interesting detail. These ETH were not simply converted into USDT or USDC sitting in the account; they were exchanged for a basket of diversified stablecoins, including USDtb, GHO, EURC, PYUSD, LUSD, and more.
● This resembles a conservative asset allocation strategy: converting a highly concentrated and volatile single asset (ETH) into "cash equivalents" composed of various stablecoins. This is both a means of wealth preservation and a preparation for future "targeted funding" with stable value.
3. Hedging Market Sentiment and Technical Ideals
Although Vitalik's selling operation was extremely gentle, in a fragile market, any slight movement will be magnified.
● In the month when he sold, Ethereum itself did not have a good time. Affected by tightening macro liquidity and overall market risk aversion, ETH fell by more than 37% within a month, briefly breaking below the 1900 dollar mark. The downward price coincided with the timeline of the founder's share reduction, inevitably leading market participants to connect the two, thinking it was a "founder's selling pressure combined with market systemic risk” causing the resonance.
● Some technical analysts even warned that ETH had broken the so-called "bear flag" lower boundary, and if the selling continued, it might test the support level at 1500 dollars.
● However, there is an essential difference between "disturbance" and "market dumping." Although Vitalik sold a significant amount, data from Arkham shows that the wallets associated with him (including other addresses) still hold about 224,000 ETH, valued at over 400 million dollars.
● What was sold this time was only the "special budget" specifically allocated from his personal holdings, accounting for less than 8% of the total holdings, not a systemic large-scale reduction.
4. Vitalik's "Tightening" and Ethereum's "Patience"
Rather than viewing this event as a simple "selling news," it is better to see it as a transparent experiment on "crypto-native governance."
● Vitalik announced the plan a month in advance, and the execution process was fully transparent and traceable, with the funds locked for purposes such as privacy protection, open-source hardware, and verifiable software, among other "public goods." This is in stark contrast to projects that rely on creating news to inflate and cash out.
● He is telling the market in his own way: even founders need to manage their personal wealth; even foundations need to learn to live through "tight days." He has bound his personal financial behavior with the long-term development of the Ethereum ecosystem.
● This nearly 390 million dollars fund will not disappear into thin air. It is simply flowing from Vitalik's personal wallet to a broader developer community. In the coming years, when this money is re-injected into the ecosystem in the form of funding, fostering more privacy-protecting and security-enhancing underlying technology, looking back at today's "clearance" may very well be the "sowing" of the next wave of innovation.
● For ordinary bystanders, the conclusion is quite clear: Do not deify the founder's wallet, nor demonize reasonable capital realization. Vitalik's operation this time carries both an idealistic halo and realistic calculation. In the noisy crypto world, this approach of saying it clearly in advance, having a visible process, and spending the money transparently is already the greatest goodwill toward the industry.
After all, an industry where even the founders are carefully managing their finances and tightening their belts for development is much more reassuring than a bubble market that only indulges in lavishness and blindly leverages.
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