Inventory of 7 Cryptocurrency Projects Backed by Vitalik Buterin
As a leader in the cryptocurrency industry, Vitalik Buterin has always been active on the front lines of the industry. In addition to being well-known as the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik has also invested in several new cryptocurrency projects under his personal name. On June 28th, MegaETH, a layer2 project aiming to build a high-performance real-time EVM, announced a $20 million financing round, with Vitalik appearing on the list as an investor. PANews takes stock of the cryptocurrency projects that Vitalik has invested in to see how his track record as an investor has fared.
According to publicly available information, Vitalik is currently invested in 7 cryptocurrency projects. Among them are well-known projects such as StarkNet and Polymarket, as well as underperforming projects like Nocturne, which announced the cessation of operations in June of this year.
StarkNet: Highest ROI of 146x
StarkNet is a permissionless decentralized Validity-Rollup (also known as “ZK-Rollup”) that operates as an L2 network on Ethereum. Vitalik made a seed round investment in StarkNet in May 2018, with a total investment of $6 million. The cost of the tokens in the seed round investment for StarkNet was $0.025 according to chainbroker data, and the STRK token reached a peak of $3.66. Vitalik’s investment in StarkNet yielded a return of 146x at its highest, with the current price of STRK falling to $0.675, still providing a return of 27x compared to Vitalik’s cost.
In addition to providing financial support to StarkNet, Vitalik has also expressed his support for StarkNet multiple times on social media.
As of now, StarkNet has raised a total of $260 million in funding, with the most recent round of funding in May 2022 valuing the project at $8 billion and raising $100 million.
In February 2024, StarkNet completed its first airdrop and launched tokens. In May, Vitalik unlocked 845,205 STRK from StarkNet, worth $1.08 million. Currently, Vitalik has not sold any STRK tokens.
Aztec Network: No turbulences after $100 million financing
Aztec Network is the first cross-chain privacy bridge on Ethereum. In 2021, Aztec Network announced a Series A financing round of $17 million, with Paradigm leading the investment and Vitalik participating. In fact, as early as 2020, Vitalik had shown support for Aztec Network on social media, not only testing Aztec himself but also stating in a tweet that with Aztec officially entering ZK rollup, the second layer expansion and privacy were on the horizon.
In 2022, Aztec Network secured another $100 million in Series B funding, bringing the total funding to $119 million. In 2023, the project launched the Aztec Sandbox Alpha program for developers, which was considered an expected testing phase. However, as of June 2024, Aztec has not announced the airdrop plan, and market interest has gradually declined. This seems to be due to a lack of marketing capabilities, as the latest news shows that Aztec has appointed Claire Kart, former Risc Zero marketing director, as the new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
Kakarot: Innovative experiment in the Starknet ecosystem
Kakarot is an EVM implemented in Cairo language on Starknet and is considered an important innovative experiment in the Starknet ecosystem. In June 2023, Kakarot announced the completion of a Pre-Seed financing round, with investments from Vitalik Buterin, StarkWare, and others. The specific size of the financing was not disclosed by the project, but as early as November 2022, Vitalik had retweeted Kakarot’s open-source code, commenting, “Very cool.” On May 22, 2024, Kakarot announced the launch of the test network.
Nocturne: A fleeting privacy protocol
Nocturne is a privacy protocol on Ethereum, aiming to allow users to conduct anonymous transactions within the Ethereum ecosystem. The project was founded in 2023 and announced a $6 million seed round financing in October of the same year, with Vitalik being one of the investors. In November 2023, Nocturne deployed the V1 version on the Ethereum mainnet, but announced the closure of the protocol in January 2024. On June 6th, Nocturne announced the gradual cessation of company operations, retaining only the withdrawal function for users.
Overall, Nocturne may be considered a relatively unsuccessful case in Vitalik’s investments, but the closure of the project reflects the challenges in the privacy track. From the final results, Nocturne, which was able to complete its mission, did not disappoint Vitalik’s support.
Daimo: Wallet application with poor marketing capabilities
Daimo is a stablecoin wallet application without mnemonic phrases that announced a $2 million seed round financing in March 2024. Vitalik is also one of the investors. In the same month, Vitalik mentioned Daimo in an article, comparing it to Venmo on Ethereum (a popular cryptocurrency payment app). However, the promotion of Daimo seems to be ineffective so far, with only over 3,000 followers on Twitter.
Polymarket: Rapid growth due to the US election
Polymarket is a decentralized information market platform that allows users to make predictions on the most controversial topics worldwide. Since its launch in 2020, Polymarket has gradually grown to become a leader in decentralized prediction market platforms. In March 2024, Vitalik tweeted about Polymarket’s data on the drop in gas fees after the EIP-4844 upgrade. In May 2024, Polymarket announced a $45 million Series B financing round, with Vitalik Buterin participating in the investment.
On July 2nd, Vitalik once again mentioned on social media: “In my Twitter circle, it’s become very normal for people to use Polymarket, metaculus, or http://electionbettingodds.com as evidence of the actual impact of daily political events.” In June 2024, as the US presidential election heated up, Polymarket’s trading volume reached $100 million, setting a new historical high. With the continued excitement around the US election, Polymarket’s market heat is expected to remain at a high level.
MegaETH: A new hope for Ethereum L2?
MegaETH is a recent project that Vitalik has invested in, with MegaLabs announcing a $20 million seed round financing on June 28th. MegaETH claims that their two key technologies – heterogeneous blockchain architecture and “super-optimized” EVM execution environment can increase TPS to 100,000. The project has not officially launched yet, but based on its expected goals and market interest, MegaETH could become an important weapon for Ethereum to compete against Solana.
In the 7 projects invested in by Vitalik, most of them revolve around privacy protocols, EVM, Layer2, wallets, and other innovative cryptocurrency infrastructure projects. Among these projects, only StarkNet has issued tokens, providing financial returns to Vitalik. There are projects like Nocturne that were short-lived, Polymarket that seized the trend and became hot, and MegaETH, a potential future star.
Overall, Vitalik’s investments may not be considered successful from a financial perspective, but it is clear that Vitalik’s choices are more focused on helping the Ethereum ecosystem develop better. Additionally, the amount of Vitalik’s investments has never been disclosed, and from a practical standpoint, his investments may have more strategic support significance than financial significance. However, based on the development of projects like Nocturne or Daimo, having Vitalik’s endorsement is not enough to gain complete market trust, and it ultimately depends on whether the product model and operational capabilities can gain acceptance from the general users.
This article is a collaborative reprint from:
PANews
