Vitalik Selling Tokens as a Meme Rally Engine: An Analysis of His Holdings and Patterns

Why doesn’t ETH rise when Vitalik sells it?

The idea that "Vitalik selling tokens" acts as a meme rally engine has gained traction once again. On August 5th, Vitalik sold Nerio, which initially caused the token to plunge 60%, but this sell-off became a crucial step for the token to reach a $700 million market cap.

On October 5th, Vitalik again began selling meme tokens on-chain, including MOODENG, Neiro, and KABOSU. The name MOODENG was already known for its Solana version, which soared to a $300 million market cap, while its Ethereum counterpart had only reached a maximum of $10 million. After Vitalik sold MOODENG, the trend reversed, and the token’s market cap surged to $10 million in just a few minutes, initiating a steady upward trend.

Yesterday, Vitalik once again sold MOODENG, converting it into 260.16 ETH (approximately $642,000) and transferring it to the Kanro charity. Shortly after, Vitalik posted:

"I’m deeply thankful to the meme coin projects that directly donate part of their token supply to charitable causes. (For example, I saw Ebull last month donating a significant portion of their tokens to several groups.)

Any tokens sent to me will also be donated to charity (thanks to Moodeng, the 10 billion tokens received today will be donated to support technologies combating airborne diseases). However, I encourage directly donating tokens to charities. Perhaps even creating a DAO where the community can directly participate in the decision-making process could be a good idea.

As I’ve mentioned before, I believe the best outcome for meme coins is for them to bring the most positive-sum effects to the world, so seeing things like this happen is truly great.”

After this post, both MOODENG and EBULL skyrocketed in price, with the former surpassing a $100 million market cap and the latter crossing $10 million.

Neiro and MOODENG bring to mind Vitalik’s 2021 sale of Shiba Inu (Shib), after which the community began promoting the idea of the "next Shib," leading to meme tokens transferring funds to Vitalik’s wallet.

What meme tokens does Vitalik currently hold, and is there a pattern to his actions?
Based on on-chain data, this article by Odaily will attempt to answer these questions.

Vitalik’s Token Holdings
This section compiles data on tokens held by Vitalik with a market value of more than $100,000 or tokens that he has sold in the last 180 days. The data, ranked in descending order of market value, is summarized in the table below:

Does Vitalik Selling Tokens Always Trigger a Price Rally?
Recently, the answer appears to be yes, especially with Neiro reinforcing this concept. The "Vitalik Sell Effect" has become increasingly prominent, as evidenced by the tokens ITO and KABOSU, which he sold on October 5th. Within an hour of Vitalik’s sale, ITO’s price surged by 222%, and KABOSU increased by 73.7%. However, earlier cases, such as JPPG, saw the price plummet to zero after his sale.

Is there a pattern to the tokens Vitalik chooses to sell? Over the past year, no clear correlation has been found between the market cap, liquidity, or other factors. The tokens he sold range from those with a market value as low as a few tens of thousands of dollars (like RICHPEPE) to those worth millions (like Neiro and MOODENG). Thus, theoretically, any token could experience the "Vitalik Sell Effect."

As for the proportion of tokens sold, no consistent pattern has emerged over the past year. Some tokens, like JPPG, were sold entirely, while others, such as MOODENG, saw only 2.5% of holdings sold. However, the total amount sold rarely exceeds a few dozen ETH. Therefore, if one aims to capitalize on the "Vitalik Sell Effect," it may be prudent to focus on tokens with liquidity that can absorb his selling pressure—specifically tokens where Vitalik holds about 5%-20%.

Aside from the tokens mentioned above, meme tokens are transferred to Vitalik’s wallet on an hourly basis. Due to the small transaction amounts, these are not listed here, though some of these tokens have also seen price increases following the transfer. Readers are encouraged to track and monitor these transfers themselves.