As a leader in the cryptocurrency industry, Vitalik Buterin has always been active at the forefront of the industry. In addition to being widely known as the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik has also invested in several new cryptocurrency projects on a personal basis. On June 28th, MegaETH, a layer2 project aiming to build a high-performance real-time EVM, announced that it had raised $20 million in funding, with Vitalik appearing on the list as an investor. PANews takes stock of the cryptocurrency projects that Vitalik has invested in to see how his performance as an investor has been.
According to publicly available information, Vitalik has currently invested in seven cryptocurrency projects. Among them are well-known projects such as StarkNet and Polymarket, as well as underperforming projects like Nocturne, which announced the cessation of operations in June of this year.
StarkNet: Highest return rate of 146x
StarkNet is a permissionless decentralized Validity-Rollup (also known as “ZK-Rollup”) that operates as an L2 network on Ethereum. In May 2018, Vitalik made a seed round investment in StarkNet, with a total funding amount of $6 million. The percentage of Vitalik’s stake in this round of funding has not been disclosed. According to data from chainbroker, the cost of the seed round investment tokens of StarkNet was $0.025, and the highest price of the STRK token reached $3.66. Vitalik’s investment in this project has achieved a return rate of up to 146x. The current price of STRK has fallen to $0.675, still providing a 27x return compared to Vitalik’s cost.
In addition to providing financial support to StarkNet, Vitalik has also expressed his support for StarkNet on social media on multiple occasions.
As of now, StarkNet has raised a total of $260 million in funding, with the latest round of funding completed in May 2022 at a valuation of $8 billion, raising $100 million.
In February 2024, StarkNet completed its first airdrop and launched its token. In May, Vitalik unlocked 845,205 STRK from StarkNet, worth $1.08 million. Currently, Vitalik has not sold any STRK tokens.
Aztec Network: $100 million in funding with little fanfare
Aztec Network is the first cross-chain privacy bridge on Ethereum. In 2021, Aztec Network announced the completion of a $17 million Series A funding round, led by Paradigm, with participation from Vitalik. In fact, as early as 2020, Vitalik had expressed support for Aztec Network on social media, showcasing his participation in Aztec tests and stating in a tweet that with Aztec entering ZK rollup, layer 2 scalability and privacy are coming.
In 2022, Aztec Network received another $100 million in Series B funding, bringing the total funding to $119 million. In 2023, the project launched the Aztec Sandbox Alpha program for developers, which was expected to be a testing phase for airdrops. However, as of June 2024, Aztec has not announced any airdrop plans, and market attention has gradually declined. This seems to be due to a lack of marketing capabilities, as the latest news shows that Aztec has appointed former Risc Zero Marketing Director Claire Kart as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
Kakarot: Innovative experiment in the StarkNet ecosystem
Kakarot is an EVM implemented in Cairo language on StarkNet and is considered an important innovative experiment in the StarkNet ecosystem. In June 2023, Kakarot tweeted that it had completed its Pre-Seed funding round, with investments from Vitalik Buterin, StarkWare, and others. The specific funding scale has not been publicly disclosed by the project team. However, as early as November 2022, Vitalik had retweeted Kakarot’s open-source code and commented, “Pretty cool.” On May 22, 2024, Kakarot announced the launch of its test network.
Nocturne: A fleeting privacy protocol
Nocturne is a privacy protocol on Ethereum that aims to enable anonymous transactions within the Ethereum ecosystem. The project was established in 2023 and announced a $6 million seed round funding in October of that year, with Vitalik being one of the participants. In November 2023, Nocturne deployed its V1 version on the Ethereum mainnet, but announced the closure of the protocol in January 2024. On June 6th, Nocturne announced the gradual cessation of its operations, while retaining the front-end withdrawal function.
Overall, Nocturne may be considered a relatively unsuccessful investment case for Vitalik, but the project’s closure reflects the difficulties faced by the privacy track. From the final results, Nocturne, which was able to start and finish, did not disappoint Vitalik’s support.
Daimo: Wallet application with poor marketing capabilities
Daimo is a stablecoin wallet without mnemonic phrases. In March 2024, it announced a $2 million seed round funding. Vitalik is also one of the investors. Also in March, Vitalik mentioned Daimo in a published article, comparing it to Venmo on Ethereum, a popular cryptocurrency payment application. However, so far, Daimo’s promotional effect seems to be poor, with just over 3,000 followers on Twitter.
Polymarket: Rapid growth with the U.S. election
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 leading decentralized prediction market platform. In March 2024, Vitalik tweeted a quote from Polymarket regarding the percentage of gas fee reduction after the EIP-4844 upgrade. In May 2024, Polymarket announced a $45 million Series B funding round, with Vitalik Buterin participating in the investment.
On July 2nd, Vitalik mentioned again on social media, saying, “In my Twitter circle, it has become very normal for people to use Polymarket, metaculus, or http://electionbettingodds.com as evidence of the actual impact of daily political events.” In June 2024, with the intensification of the U.S. presidential campaign, Polymarket’s trading volume reached $100 million, reaching a historic high. As the heat of the U.S. election continues to rise, Polymarket’s market popularity will remain at a high level.
MegaETH: A new hope for Ethereum L2?
MegaETH is the most recent project that Vitalik has invested in. On June 28th, MegaLabs announced the completion of a $20 million seed round funding. MegaETH claims to have two key technologies – a heterogeneous blockchain architecture and an “ultra-optimized” EVM execution environment that can increase TPS to 100,000. Currently, the project has not been officially launched, but based on its expected goals and market enthusiasm, MegaETH could become an important weapon for Ethereum to compete against Solana.
Overall, Vitalik’s investments may not be considered successful from a financial perspective, but it is clear that his choices are more oriented towards helping the Ethereum ecosystem develop better. Additionally, the amount of Vitalik’s investments has never been disclosed, and from a practical standpoint, his strategic support may be more significant than financial gains. However, looking at the development of projects like Nocturne or Daimo, having Vitalik’s endorsement is not enough to gain complete market trust. It still depends on whether the product model and operational capabilities can gain recognition from the general users.
