Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has recently transferred 400 ETH, equivalent to about $1.05 million, to Railgun, a prominent crypto mixer, as revealed by on-chain data from the Arkham Intelligence dashboard.
This transaction occurred on Aug. 19 and was verified by Web3 analysis platform SpotOnChain, which indicated that Buterin had previously moved 662 ETH, approximately $1.91 million, to Railgun over the past ten months.
Railgun: Enhancing Transaction Privacy
Railgun functions similarly to the established Tornado Cash protocol by obscuring users’ transactions. However, it implements the Privacy Pool protocol, an idea originating from an academic paper by Buterin.
The Privacy Pools enable users to create cryptographic proofs validating the origins of their funds while safeguarding their privacy. This differentiation could aid law enforcement in identifying and excluding illicit participants such as the North Korea-backed Lazarus Group hackers. Buterin stated, “Railgun uses the privacy pools protocol which makes it much harder for bad actors to join the pool without compromising users’ privacy.”
With Buterin’s continued support, Railgun has seen a significant increase in popularity, attracting nearly 10,000 unique users on the Ethereum blockchain and processing a total of $1.6 billion in transactions, as reported by the Dune Analytics dashboard.
Possible Charitable Contributions?
The exact motive behind Buterin’s latest transfer remains unclear, prompting speculation among community members about potential charitable donations.
Buterin has a history of sizable crypto contributions, including donating over $1 billion in Shiba Inu memecoin to the Indian Covid-Crypto Relief Fund in 2021. More recently, he contributed 200 ETH, valued at over $500,000, to an Animal Welfare Charity fund, generated from selling animal-themed tokens. He encouraged token issuers to directly allocate funds to charities in the future.
