Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin admitted that the memcoins he donated to charity rose in price against all his forecasts. He responded to a tweet from Frostwork director Nathan Young, who mentioned the Future of Life Institute (FLI), a non-profit organization specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) research. Nathan Young was surprised that donations in SHIB tokens for this organization are estimated at almost $600 million.

FLI was one of the recipients of donations to SHIB from Vitalik Buterin. In May 2021, the co-founder of Ethereum burned 410 trillion SHIB for $7.4 billion, and donated the remaining tokens to charity. The situation with FLI is reminiscent of the Indian charity CryptoRelief, where Buterin also sent 50.6 trillion SHIB. At that time, the value of the tokens was estimated at $1.2 billion.

“I rushed to send more SHIB tokens to CryptoRelief, thinking that they would surely collapse in value in a few days. I had to act quickly so that recipients could cash out $10-25 million before the price dropped. And of course, SHIB coins significantly outperformed everything my expectations," Buterin wrote.

The Ethereum co-founder had previously underestimated the memcoin market. In 2022, he criticized the crypto community's excessive focus on Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collectible tokens, comparing NFTs to casinos. Buterin lamented that celebrities are making billions from NFTs when the tokens could be used to solve social problems.