Author: Frank, PANews
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 to the public as the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik has also invested in some new cryptocurrency projects in his own name many times. On June 28, MegaETH, a layer 2 project that aims to create an ultra-high-performance real-time EVM, announced that it had received US$20 million in financing, and Vitalik appeared on the list as an investor. PANews will take stock of the crypto projects Vitalik has invested in to see what Vitalik’s record is as an investor.
According to public content, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has currently invested in 7 cryptocurrency projects. Among them, the more well-known ones are StarkNet and Polymarket, but there is also Nocturne, which is not operating well and announced it would cease operations in June this year.
StarkNet: Highest return rate 146x
StarkNet is a permissionless decentralized Validity-Rollup (also known as "ZK-Rollup"). It operates as an L2 network on Ethereum. Vitalik invested in a seed round of StarkNet in May 2018. The total amount of this round of financing was $6 million, and Vitalik’s proportion of it was not disclosed. According to chainbroker data, the cost of StarkNet’s seed round investment token is US$0.025, and so far the STRK token has risen to a maximum of US$3.66. Vitalik's highest return on this investment reached 146 times, and currently the STRK price is back to 0.675, which is still a 27 times return based on Vitalik's cost.
In addition to financial support for StarkNet, Vitalik has also publicly expressed his support for StarkNet on social media many times.
To date, StarkNet has completed a total of US$260 million in financing. The most recent round of financing was in May 2022, completing US$100 million at a valuation of US$8 billion.
In February 2024, StarkNet completed the first round of airdrops and listed tokens. In May, Vitalik unlocked 845,205 STRK from StarkNet, worth $1.08 million. Currently, Vitalik remains unsold of STRK tokens.
Aztec Network: No disturbances after US$100 million in financing
Aztec Network is the first cross-chain privacy bridge on Ethereum. In 2021, Aztec Network announced the completion of a $17 million Series A round of financing, led by Paradigm and with participation from Vitalik. In fact, as early as 2020, Vitalik supported Aztec Network on social media. Not only did he show off his participation in Aztec's testing, but he also tweeted that as Aztec officially enters ZK rollup, layer 2 expansion and privacy are coming. .
In 2022, Aztec Network once again received US$100 million in Series B financing, bringing its total financing to US$119 million. In 2023, the project launched the developer's Aztec Sandbox Alpha plan, which is considered the expected testing phase of the airdrop. However, until June 2024, Aztec had not announced its airdrop plan, and market attention gradually decreased. This seems to be caused by a lack of marketing capabilities. The latest news shows that Aztec appointed former Risc Zero marketing director Claire Kart as its new chief marketing officer (CMO).
Kakarot: an innovative experiment in the Starknet ecosystem
Kakarot is an EVM implemented in the Cairo language on Starknet and is considered an important innovative experiment in the Starknet ecosystem. In June 2023, Kakarot tweeted that it had completed a Pre-Seed round of financing, with participation from Vitalik Buterin, StarkWare and others. The project party did not disclose the specific financing scale, but as early as November 2022, Vitalik forwarded Kakarot’s open source code and commented that it was “too cool”. On May 22, 2024, Kakarot announced the launch of the test network.
Nocturne: A short-lived privacy protocol
Nocturne is a privacy protocol on Ethereum. The company's goal is to allow users to conduct anonymous transactions in the Ethereum ecosystem. The project was founded in 2023 and announced in October of that year that it had received $6 million in seed round financing, with Vitalik also being one of the investors. In November 2023, Nocturne deployed the V1 version on the Ethereum mainnet, but by January 2024 it announced the closure of this protocol. On June 6, Nocturne announced that it would gradually cease company operations and retain the withdrawal function on the front end.
Overall, Nocturne may be a relatively unsuccessful case of Vitalik's investment, but the closure of the project more reflects the difficulty of the privacy track. Judging from the final result, Nocturne, who started well and ended well, did not live up to Vitalik's support.
Daimo: A poorly marketed wallet app
Daimo is a stablecoin wallet without a mnemonic phrase. In March 2024, it announced that it had received US$2 million in seed round financing. Vitalik is also an investor. Also in March, Vitalik mentioned Daimo in an article he published, comparing it to Venmo on Ethereum (a popular cryptocurrency payment software). However, Daimo’s promotion effect so far seems to be poor, with only more than 3,000 followers on Twitter.
Polymarket: US election brings rapid growth
Polymarket is a decentralized information market platform that allows users to make predictions on the world's most controversial topics. Since its launch in 2020, the project has gradually grown into a leader in decentralized prediction market platforms. In March 2024, Vitalik tweeted quoting Polymarket’s data on the proportion of gas fee reduction after the EIP-4844 upgrade. In May 2024, Polymarket announced the completion of a $45 million Series B round of financing, with Vitalik Buterin participating in the investment.
On July 2, Vitalik mentioned again on social media: "It has become very normal in my Twitter circle 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 U.S. presidential race heated up, Polymarket’s trading volume reached an all-time high of $100 million. As the popularity of the US election continues to rise, Polymarket's market popularity will remain at a high level.
MegaETH: New hope for Ethereum L2?
MegaETH is a project that Vitalik recently participated in. On June 28, MegaLabs announced the completion of a $20 million seed round of financing. MegaETH claims that the two key technologies they have mastered - heterogeneous blockchain architecture and "super-optimized" EVM execution environment can increase TPS to 100,000. At present, the project has not been officially launched, but judging from the expected goals and market popularity, MegaETH will likely become an important weapon for Ethereum to fight against Solana.
Among the 7 projects invested by Vitalik, they are basically innovative projects surrounding encryption infrastructure such as privacy protocols, EVM, Layer2, and wallets. Among these projects, only StarkNet has issued coins, which can be regarded as providing financial returns to Vitalik. There are also short-lived projects like Nocturne, popular projects like Polymarket, and potential future stars like MegaETH.
Overall, Vitalik's investment may not be successful from a financial perspective, but it is obvious that Vitalik's choice is more in the direction of helping the Ethereum ecosystem develop better. The amount of Vitalik’s investment has never been made public. From a practical point of view, his participation may have more strategic support than financial significance. However, judging from the development of Nocturne or Daimo, being endorsed by Buterin is not enough to gain complete trust from the market. The more important test is whether the product model and operational capabilities can be recognized by mass users.
(The above content is excerpted and reprinted with the authorization of our partner PANews, original text link)
Statement: The article only represents the author's personal views and opinions, and does not represent the objective views and positions of the blockchain. All contents and opinions are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investors should make their own decisions and transactions, and the author and Blockchain Client will not be held responsible for any direct or indirect losses caused by investors' transactions.
"An inventory of the 7 cryptocurrency projects in which "V God" participated: some have returned hundreds of times, and some have announced their suspension." This article was first published on "Block Guest".