Vitalik Buterin-Named Wallet Sent 500 Ether to Mint RAI, Buy USDC Amid Depegging

A wallet named after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin spent 500 ether (ETH), or just over $700,000, over the weekend to mint the lesser-known RAI stablecoin and used the funds to purchase USD coin (USDC) while the stablecoin traded below its $1 peg.

The wallet labeled vitalik.eth was created seven years ago and held more than 5,360 ether as of Tuesday. While Ethereum Names Service domains resolve to crypto wallets, they may be not necessarily held by a person popularly associated with the name.

“Vitalik-labeled address has deposited 500 $ETH in Reflexer to mint 150k $RAI, and swapped 132.5k $RAI for 378.5k $USDC,” blockchain analytics firm PeckShield said Sunday. “Additionally, they swapped 17.5k $RAI for 50k $DAI within the last 3 hours.”

Buterin has previously acknowledged RAI’s unique stablecoin mechanism in a blog post. Unlike most other stablecoins, the Reflexer Finance-issued RAI isn't pegged to any fiat currency and is instead backed by ether. Each RAI can be redeemed for $2.70 worth of ether as of Tuesday.

USDC depegged over the weekend after Friday’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank caused a market-wide drop in cryptocurrencies. Companies affected included U.S.-based stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Financial, which held some of the reserves for its USDC stablecoin at Silicon Valley Bank as of Jan. 17.

USDC regained its peg to on Monday night – giving cheap USDC buyers a 10% gain in a little over 48 hours.