Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin transferred 400 ETH, worth about $1.05 million, to Railgun, a well-known crypto mixer, according to on-chain data from Arkham Intelligence dashboard.
The transaction, which took place on August 19, was corroborated by Web3 analytics platform SpotOnChain, which said Buterin transferred 662 ETH, or about $1.91 million, to Railgun over the past ten months.
Railgun
Railgun works like the trusted Tornado Cash protocol by helping to hide its users’ transactions. However, it uses the Privacy Pool protocol, a concept that originated in an academic paper by Buterin.
Privacy pools allow users to create cryptographic proofs that verify the legitimate origin of their funds while preserving privacy. So, if honest users generate these proofs, only malicious actors like the North Korean-backed hackers Lazarus Group will be missing them, and this differentiation could help law enforcement identify and exclude these illicit participants.
Buterin said:
“Railgun uses the Privacy Pools protocol, making it much harder for bad actors to join the pool without compromising user privacy.”
Thanks to Buterin’s continued use, Railgun’s popularity has exploded. It now has nearly 10,000 unique users on the Ethereum blockchain and has processed a total of $1.6 billion in transactions, according to Dune Analytics’ dashboard.
Another gift?
The precise reason for Buterin’s recent transfer remains unclear. However, some community members speculate that it may be related to charitable donations.
Indeed, Buterin has a history of making significant cryptocurrency donations. In 2021, he contributed over $1 billion to India’s Covid-Crypto Relief Fund using the Shiba Inu memecoin.
Most recently, he donated 200 ETH, worth over $500,000, to an animal welfare charity. Buterin said the funds were generated by selling various animal-themed tokens, while urging coin issuers to allocate them directly to charities in the future.
