Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin will use Shiba Inu funds in biotech and medical sciences in the fight against COVID-19

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin will receive $100 million worth of the dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC, coming from the $1 billion SHIB he donated in May 2021 to CryptoRelief.

Buterin reported that it will use the funds for biotechnology and medical science projects related to COVID-19, after the Indian charity faced problems with the deployment of crypto donations.

This is what he said on Twitter:

Story of a donation

When the creators of the popular meme token Shiba Inu (SHIB) sent half of the supply to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin in May 2021, he did something unexpected: he donated around $1 billion to the Indian COVID relief fund. -19, CryptoRelief, before “burning” the rest.

However, now $100 million of the donated funds will be returned to Buterin. Today CryptoRelief founder Sandeep Nailwal, also a co-founder of Ethereum sidechain scaling solution Polygon, announced that the funds will be returned to Buterin with his blessing.

In a Twitter thread, Nailwal explained that Buterin is able to use the funds more effectively for charitable purposes as a non-Indian citizen. CryptoRelief must be “very cautious” to remain in “full compliance with Indian jurisdiction,” and Nailwal wrote that as a non-resident Indian citizen, he must also be cautious about which projects receive donations from the organization.

“Vitalik, not being Indian, is able to do so in a faster way by being able to make decisions faster,” Nailwal wrote, “and deploy to projects that have higher risk but also higher rewards.”

Nailwal added that Buterin’s original donation represented 98% of the organization’s total contributions, and that $100 million of the remaining funds will be returned in the USDC stablecoin. Buterin added that he co-founded a new organization called Balvi and will work with scientific advisers to focus on causes related to biotechnology and medical science.

However, in Buterin’s words, the $100 million may not go to causes that focus exclusively on India. Buterin said his new organization will go towards projects that are “very high value and global in nature and that provide great benefit to Indians and non-Indians.” He mentioned vaccine research and development, innovative approaches to air filtration and ventilation, and more. He said he will give more information soon.