Vitalik Buterin-linked biotech charity Kanro transfers $15M to fund grant

The Ethereum Foundation has shed light on a recent $15 million USD Coin USDC$1.00 transaction involving Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin which garnered the attention of several blockchain tracking platforms.

On Oct. 17, posts from blockchain analytics firm PeckShield and Lookonchain on X both claimed that Buterin’s wallet, known as “vitalik.eth” transferred $14.93 million to the Gemini crypto exchange on Oct. 16.

However, an Ethereum Foundation spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the transfer was nothing more than Buterin’s Ethereum Name Service (ENS) signing off on a transfer from a charity multisig wallet to fund a grant, adding that the funds never actually left Buterin’s wallet.

#PeckShieldAlert #vitalik.eth haas transferred ~15M $USDC (Multisig Contract 0xf207…D5a3) to #Gemini pic.twitter.com/6FZGKLKg9Z

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) October 17, 2023

Kanro is a biotech charity funded by Buterin that aims to address COVID-19 and other pandemic-related issues.

Last year @CryptoRelief_ led by @sandeepnailwal allocated $100m to Covid research projects I wanted to fund

Sandeep and I discussed and jointly concluded these and other projects are high-impact and need follow through grants. Hence we decided to put $100m more to these projects

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 8, 2023

Buterin’s various crypto transfers have been in the limelight over the last several months, while transfers from Buterin’s wallets totaled more than $3.9 million in September.

On Sept. 24, Buterin transferred 400 ETH — worth $600,000 at the time — to Coinbase. Cointelegraph also reported a 600 ETH ($1 million) transaction from the vitalik.eth address on Aug. 21, which was also identified by on-chain monitoring platforms.