Ethereum crypto billionaire Vitalik destroyed 40% SHIB coins worth $7B | Hacker News Reader

Ethereum crypto billionaire Vitalik destroyed 40% SHIB coins worth $7B

blockcrunch.co

43 pointsanandaverma1832 comments

> But for anyone making coins (or daos, or whatever else) in the future, PLEASE DO NOT GIVE ME COINS OR POWER IN YOUR PROJECT WITHOUT MY CONSENT! I don’t want to be a locus of power of that kind. Better to just print the coins into the hands of a worthy charity directly (though do talk to them first)

Vitalik feels like the right kind of person for the job that he has.

How so?

Because!

He seems to actively try to reduce the amount of power he has (Or at least not grow it) and doesn't want Ethereum to be reliant on him.

Right, but why do you believe someone who doesn't want power and wants decentralization is the right person for the job? Isn't the whole point that no one person is the right person since, you know, it's all decentralized?

The Charity could run a campaign of selling the coin off to those that want to support India.

I wouldn't like to be the one filing his tax return ;)

A very confusing “article”.

Why do you think its confusing?

Reads like a high school essay. Ideas are put into words but not tied together very coherently.

I think, for me it was contextual because I am following the trend for quite some time. But, I agree with you, for a new reader it may seem confusing.

I wonder how that will affect his taxes?

Interesting move donating $1 billion in COVID relief to India. Will it make them rethink banning crypto?

The coins were not really worth 1 billion in the sense of being able to convert them into a billion in covid relief, since the market for them is very thin. They are worth far more as a mark to market charitable deduction.

Now the puzzle of what to do with this nonsense is in someone else's hands.

Exactly how do you convert from crypto to regular currency? If you can't how do you convince the full supplier ecosystem to take crypto as payment? and If you do, then who benefits from the rise in crypto currency use in one of the largest country. I'm an Indian, and I don't want to malign the intent behind it. But it is not going to convert into COVID-19 relief anytime soon, and not sure it will matter by the time it can be converted/translated into relief.

Exchanges, mainly Binance and Coinbase right now, have to offer SHIB/USD trading for there to be a market for this, and if there really was an unannounced selloff of this magnitude right now (with the relatively low transaction rate), the coin's value would instantly crash.

There's also the issue that, since nobody is going to use it to trade commodities or actual goods and services, the value of this coin is entirely based on speculation of its future value by investors.

Binance listed it very early, Coinbase did not and might not even list. Coinbase announced to list DOGE after 6-8 weeks. I don't think there will list SHIB anytime sooner. Maybe a year later if it becomes something.

Doge also started as meme coin, no utility but now slowly becoming a coin of choice for at-least transaction between two parties. who know how DOGE and SHIB turn out in near future.

And on Binance it is probably not USD, but Tethers instead (hidden from user).

Well, the recipient needs to sell them on an exchange or find a party which would be ready to swap the coins for something else.

AFAIK Buterin never wanted these coins, which is why he donated them. What happens with them after that really isn’t his concern. It’s still free money

True.. but then the counterpoint is you can't eat money.. I mean, I understand why he gave it away, but I also don't expect it turn into anything anytime soon. May be even siphoned off by some officers.4.

If Buterin had sold the coins before donating he would have crashed their price by himself and I can see how that’s not something he wanted to do.

He gave away a lot and burned the rest, thus theoretically creating scarcity which should play in favor of the price. Then again, SHIB is a hyped shitcoin, it was never going to be worth much in the long run and it’s remarkable that it even reached the price it has right now.

Creating such a token can be done within an hour.

If the COVID relief fund gets stolen by officers, then that is unfortunate to say the least but once again, all things considered, Buterin did the best thing he could.

According to Matt Levine's Money Stuff, the IRS is likely not going to accept the 1 billion valuation at face value.

They were worth exactly what he got for them.

Its a freaking definition of worth.

If you think your paper comic is worth 20000 cuz its first series in plastic wrap then its worth 20000 as long as someone pays you that for it.

How about a piece of canvas with 3 colours? Is it work millions?

It's not $1 billion. It's $1 billion worth of shitcoin. If the charity actually tried to liquidate this donation the token would be finished.

Does he still get to write it off?

As long as he can prove that was the market value at the time.

It is a good question.

Definitely, liquidation would trigger mass collapse of the coin prices, making the donation only useful prominently in the ETH form. News outlets ate this up, yet the liquidity issue of the transaction was not mentioned at all.

The terms "inflation" and "deflation" are used in the context of the amount of a currency in circulation, and in the wider financial context, they have little sensible meaning otherwise.

When talking about price, "increase" and "decrease" would be a more correct term, or in this case, "collapse".

Given the context, "collapse" would be more fitting for clarity. Cheers.

Rationally - the source of money shouldn't change people's opinion about the source. If it's meant to, we usually call that a bribe, or if it's from a company to a politician we call that bribe donation/lobbying.

Taken to the extreme - if you got $1B earned from assassinations, would you rethink banning assassination?

It's a curious case in India. RBI sending side warnings to banks to cut ties with crypto exchanges but Supreme court has not passed any order as such. Supreme court even left the decision to Banks to decide at the moment what they want to do till there is a proper bill which is not yet out because of countries Covid situation.

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