Ethereum Creator Causes Cryptocurrency to Surge 350% Following Investment
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, triggered a 350% price surge in the ANON token after blockchain data revealed that his wallet exchanged 0.082 ETH for 30,303 ANON tokens on the evening of Wednesday, November 20.
What is Anoncast and the ANON Token?
Anoncast is a zero-knowledge proof-based application that allows users holding at least 20,000 ANON tokens to post anonymously on the social network Farcaster. Following Buterin’s transaction, ANON experienced a brief correction but still maintains a 190% increase compared to its pre-purchase price.
The transaction was discovered via a tracker monitoring Buterin's vitalik.eth address on Arkham Intelligence. Hours after the trade, ANON’s market cap surged from $36 million to $39.2 million. This marks Buterin’s first known investment in a token on Coinbase's Layer 2 network, Base.
The Anoncast account on X (formerly Twitter) commented on the event, stating, “It must be fun for Vitalik to lose himself in the crowd again.”
Origins of ANON
Super Anon (ANON) is the native token of Anoncast. It utilizes zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic method enabling verification without disclosing underlying information. The project emerged from an AI-generated prompt on Farcaster that suggested creating an anonymous token on Base with the ticker $ANON. This concept evolved into a decentralized community, further developing projects like AnonColors and a zk-proof-based publishing system.
Features
Anoncast recently reduced its anonymous posting requirement from 20,000 to 15,000 tokens, while users with 1 million ANON can promote posts on X and delete content. The project gained traction through support from Farcaster developers and protocol integrations.
Dan Romero, Farcaster’s co-founder, called Anoncast a “consumer zk app,” developed by Kartik Patel, formerly of manifold.xyz and OpenSea. The app is described as an “experimental arena” for human intelligence to compete with AI.
