Vitalik Says He Hasn’t Sold Any ETH Since 2018

Vitalik Buterin hasn’t taken any profits on his personal stash of ETH since 2018, according to a post from the Ethereum founder on Warpcast, a decentralized social media platform.

While Buterin rarely comments on his personal transactions, the clarification comes after large ETH transfers from his Ethereum wallet to centralized exchanges – nearly $4M worth of ETH in September alone – were widely covered by news outlets. Founders cashing out their tokens is usually seen as a bearish signal, generally indicating a lack of confidence in their projects’ future prospects.

ETH is down nearly 6% in the past two weeks after trading above $1,700 at the start of the month.

Farcaster AMA

On Oct. 17, Buterin revealed some of his biggest concerns for Ethereum's future and shared insights on the progress of Layer 2 development in an AMA session hosted by Dan Romero, co-founder of Farcaster, another decentralized social platform.

A scenario in which crypto remains stagnant while the focus of technological innovation shifts further to AI could potentially pose a threat to Ethereum, he said, adding that he’s suspicious of the incentives driving big players in the sector.

When asked what keeps him motivated, Buterin spoke about the unique position of the Ethereum community in building technology that can bring significant value to an increasingly complex world.

Reflecting on Ethereum’s development path and the decision to favour an expanded Layer 2 ecosystem over sharding at the Layer 1 level, Buterin said that the core team was focused on the network’s transition to proof of stake consensus at the time, and that he believes that the infrastructure to support Layer 2s would not have developed as quickly if Ethereum had pursued sharding.

He went on to say that there is a ‘counter-movement’ emerging to bring more standardization across the Layer 2 ecosystem, with features like account abstraction (ERC 4337), EVM compatibility, standardizing the cross-domain wallet experience, and a possible L1-enshrined ZK-EVM in the future.