Is Vitalik Buterin dumping his Ethereum?

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Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), has withdrawn a sizable portion of his ETH holdings.

Most notably, the entrepreneur has offloaded around 13,220 ETH, worth approximately $33 million, over the last three days with the transactions executed at an average price of about $2,497 per ETH, according to on-chain data retrieved by Finbold from blockchain analytics platform Arkham on Thursday, February 5.

At press time, Buterin still held $40.28 million worth of cryptocurrency assets, $7 million of which were in Ethereum. As, the Russian-Canadian computer programmer has cut his direct exposure to ETH by roughly 80%.

Why is Vitalik selling Ethereum?

Large transfers from Buterin’s wallets have attracted market attention, given that ETH has recently lost major daily-chart consolidation zones around $2,800 and $2,700, triggering one of its sharpest sell-offs since mid-2025.

However, the situation might not be as dramatic as it might first seem. Namely, Vitalik had made a statement on X just days before the offloading began, explaining that he intended to reduce a portion of his personal holdings in a period when the ecosystem is facing “mild austerity.”

“In these five years, the Ethereum Foundation is entering a period of mild austerity… For this reason I have just withdrawn 16,384 ETH, which will be deployed toward these goals over the next few years. I am also exploring secure decentralized staking options that will allow even more capital from staking rewards to be put toward these goals in the long term,” the Ethereum co-founder wrote.

In these five years, the Ethereum Foundation is entering a period of mild austerity, in order to be able to simultaneously meet two goals:

1. Deliver on an aggressive roadmap that ensures Ethereum's status as a performant and scalable world computer that does not compromise on…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 30, 2026

The cut, worth around $45 million, is set aside to support privacy-preserving technologies, open hardware, and secure, verifiable software, with Buterin noting that the funds would be deployed gradually over several years.

Ultimately, then, the heightened wallet activity merely suggests that the philanthropist is executing his plans to build the open and verifiable technology stack that he has promised.

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