Vitalik Buterin sells latest batch of unsolicited memecoins for $29,400

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has once again sold a batch of unsolicited tokens sent to his public wallet, continuing a pattern of liquidating memecoins that appear in his wallet without his request.

According to the Ether developer’s wallet tracking by Arkham Intelligence, about two hours before this publication, Buterin swapped several small-cap tokens into a combined 9.4 ETH, worth about $29,400 at current market prices.

vitalik.eth(@VitalikButerin) sold some freely received tokens from his wallet again over the past 30 minutes, receiving 9.4 $ETH($29.4K).https://t.co/pMvkZHjIyD pic.twitter.com/0MzXFPbx3P

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) January 13, 2026

The transactions were executed through decentralized exchange aggregators and bridge LiFi diamond, Socket Getaway, Across protocol, and Bungee, a familiar process Buterin has used in past sell-offs of airdropped assets. 

Buterin sells WOOLLY, IZZY and OP in the  latest airdrop token dump

Looking at the tokens involved in the conversions, Buterin swapped 7.528 OP tokens into Ether through Bungee Exchange. He also exchanged 4.508 million DEGEN tokens for ETH, and a separate swap of 23.988 million CHIB tokens through Socket Gateway and PullSplit.

The Arkham data also shows several other Ether-denominated swaps in aggregator routes, including 0.668, 0.762, 0.837, 1.927, and 0.739 ETH received from LiFi and Bungee Exchange conversions.

One of the most sizable single conversions came via Across Protocol, where Buterin received 4.496 ETH from the sale of a bundled token position. Smaller token exchanges for ETH included WOOLLY and IZZY trades, with the latter seeing 13.628 million units converted through LiFi.

At the time of the swaps, Ethereum was trading slightly above $3,136, according to Coingecko’s pricing data. The ETH received was sent back to addresses that purportedly belong to Buterin, adding to his already substantial Ether holdings.

The Ethereum Foundation co-founder has a recorded history of selling tokens that are airdropped to his address, having publicly said he “sees no moral value” in them. As Cryptopolitan reported last October, Buterin sold 275 trillion CatCoin tokens for 14,216 USDC, equivalent to about $14,200. 

As with the latest activity, he did not publicly comment on the reasons behind the disposal, and the assumption is that the proceeds will go to a charitable cause. He rarely announces a sale ahead and refrains from explaining them entirely. However, he has openly blasted projects for using his wallet for “promotions.”

“Many projects have opted to send a substantial chunk of their supply to me,” Buterin told his followers on X last year. “Anything that gets sent to me gets donated to charity too, though I truly prefer if you guys send to charity directly.”

In January, Cryptopolitan, citing Lookonchain, reported that Buterin sold several other memecoins he had received for free, including 340 billion DOG tokens for 5.2 ETH. The combined proceeds from that round totaled $139,000 at the time.

Around October 10, the programmer sold tokens valued at 1,101 ETH, or about $2.78 million at then-current prices. Among the tokens sold in that round were 10 billion MOODENG, 200,000 MSTR, and 500 million EBULL. 

Those disposals generated 395.95 ETH, 93.23 ETH, and 73.79 ETH, respectively, based on contemporaneous pricing. From those sales, he donated 360.16 ETH, roughly $884,000, to an unmentioned charity.

“I appreciate all the memecoins that donate portions of their supply directly to charity. Anything that gets sent to me gets donated to charity too (thanks, moodeng!). The 10B from today is going to anti-airborne-disease tech,” the Ethereum founder remarked at the time.

Buterin’s portfolio, beyond the memecoins he sold and as seen on Arkham’s dashboard, places his total on-chain assets at more than $763 million. The wallet holds about 240,000 ETH, valued at $752 million at current prices. 

Smaller positions include wrapped ether variants and a range of minor tokens accumulated over time, like WHITE, MOODENG, KNC, TRUE, REPv2, and THE. Some of these assets have seen recent price declines, which have slumped the portfolio’s holdings by just over $7 million in the past seven days and over $30 million in the last month. 

Meanwhile, Ethereum is flashing signs of bullish momentum, although it recorded a meager 0.8% price uptick to hold above the $3,090 level. h.

Meanwhile, Ethereum is flashing signs of bullish momentum, although it recorded a meager 0.8% price uptick to hold above the $3,090 level. e the $3,090 level.

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