Share this article

Buterin, Srinivasan Donate to COVID Relief Fund for India 'Shaken' by Second Wave

Buterin donated more than $600,000 in crypto while Srinivasan donated $50,000 and pledged up to $100,000 more.

Updated Sep 14, 2021, 12:46 p.m. Published Apr 25, 2021, 4:19 p.m.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and fellow cryptocurrency legend Balaji Srinivasan are pitching into a fund set up by Indian tech entrepreneur Sandeep Nailwal to help provide relief to COVID-19-ravaged India.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto for Advisors Newsletter today. See all newsletters

By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

It all started with this tweet by Nailwal, the founder of Polygon, an Ethereum scaling platform.

Can't take this sitting down anymore, I am going to run a Covid relief campaign in lieu of what’s going on in India.

Need help from the Global crypto community.

I will take full responsibility for transparency, funds usage and regulatory compliance

If you want to donate.. 1/n
— Sandeep - Polygon (@sandeepnailwal) April 24, 2021

That prompted Srinivasan, a former Coinbase CTO and board partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, to donate $50,000 in ETH and called on others to contribute as well.

Here's the first $50k in ETH for COVID relief in India.

An important feature of crypto is that it enables fast, transparent humanitarian donations from around the world. You can see the donation on-chain here: https://t.co/RRFsfYQe6y
— Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) April 25, 2021

Buterin then answered Nailwal's call by posting a proof of transfer of 100 ETH and 100 MKR, worth more than $600,000, on his Twitter feed.

In response to Buterin's generosity, Srinivasan then said that for those who can't afford to donate he'll contribute another $50, up to $100,000, for every retweet of his appeal.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to do well this year, consider joining me and @VitalikButerin by donating at the addresses below.

But if all you have is Twitter, help spread the word. For every RT, I’ll donate another $50 to fight COVID in India, up to $100k. #cryptovscovid https://t.co/eKlOlccelv
— Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) April 25, 2021

There's a chance, however, this generosity might not be welcome. India's government is preparing legislation that could ban private cryptocurrencies.

"This is a gutsy, though risky campaign, especially because under Indian law, foreign funds for charitable purposes are very closely scrutinized," said Tanvi Ratna, founder and CEO of Policy 4.0, a research and advisory firm currently focused on digital currencies and blockchain.

"That is probably the most sensitive area of foreign capital to choose to route crypto into!" added Ratna, who is working with the donation campaign to address the regulatory challenge.

Given the current crisis, perhaps Nailwal and Ratna might find a receptive audience. Earlier Sunday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said the country had been "shaken" by a storm of COVID infections, according to a report in India Today.

Indian authorities announced 349,691 new cases on Sunday, a record for a single country, the Guardian reported. India also reported a daily death total of 2,767 deaths, also a record, the newspaper said.

Nations around the world are pitching in to help India deal with the latest wave. Late Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken promised in a tweet that the country would "rapidly deploy" added support to the people of India.

Our hearts go out to the Indian people in the midst of the horrific COVID-19 outbreak. We are working closely with our partners in the Indian government, and we will rapidly deploy additional support to the people of India and India's health care heroes.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) April 25, 2021

UPDATE (April 25, 17:11 UTC): Adds background on challenges facing crypto donations in India.

India Vitalik Buterin Balaji S. Srinivasan Sandeep Nailwal COVID-19 Narendra Modi

Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Reynolds is editor-in-chief at CoinDesk. Prior to joining the company in mid-2020, Reynolds spent 23 years at Bloomberg, where he won two CEO awards for moving the needle for the entire company and established himself as one of the world's leading experts in real-time financial news. In addition to having done almost every job in the newsroom, Reynolds built, scaled and ran products for every asset class, including First Word, a 250-person global news/analysis service for professional clients, as well as Bloomberg's Speed Desk and the training program that all Bloomberg News hires worldwide are required to take. He also turned around several other operations, including the company's flash headlines desk and was instrumental in the turnaround of Bloomberg's BGOV unit. He shares a patent for a content management system he helped design, is a Certified Scrum Master, and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He owns bitcoin, ether, polygon and solana.