Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, celebrated the cryptocurrency's 8th birthday in Bengaluru with some 'ghevar' cake, masala dosa and a little bit of "Bharat Darshanam". Polygon COO and founder of CrytoRelief Sandeep Nailwal, who was present at the celebration took to microblogging site X to share the glimpse of Mr Buterin enjoying Indian delicacies.
"Celebrating Ethereum's eighth birthday with @VitalikButerin with Indian "Ghever" as cake in Bengaluru. Happy Birthday Ethereum! Also getting Vitalik do a bit of Bharat Darshanam," Mr Nailwal tweeted along with a series of pictures.
Take a look below:
Separately, angel investor Ishank Gupta also shared a picture with Vitalik Buterin. "Literally had a fanboy moment earlier tonight / met @VitalikButerin in person with @sandeepnailwal and @manishdiesel. Got a chance to briefly explain the social impact in gaming being created by @IndiGG_DAO," Mr Gupta wrote.
Ethereum went live in July 2015, and the cryptocurrency has since grown rapidly to become the second only to Bitcoin in market capitalisation.
Meanwhile, Mr Buterin's connection with India stretches beyond delicacies. In 2021, he made an unprecedented donation to support India's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. He donated $1 billion worth of Shiba Inu cryptocurrency coins to CryptoRelief, a Covid relief fund established by Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of crypto organization Polygon.
However, it was later reported that only 5 percent of Mr Buterin's original donation was utilized for Covid relief efforts in India. This was due to the volatile nature of the meme coins, which saw their value fluctuate dramatically following the donation. CryptoRelief, therefore, returned $100 million in cryptocurrency to Mr Buterin to avoid conflict with Indian laws and the distribution of relief funds.
"CryptoRelief sending $100m of the $SHIBA funds back to me. I plan to personally deploy these funds with the help of science advisors to complement CryptoRelief's existing excellent work with some higher-risk higher-reward COVID science and relief projects worldwide," Mr Buterin said in a tweet.
