Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has explained the story behind his huge 2021 donation to the Future of Life Institute, while also distancing himself from some of the group’s more recent approaches to artificial intelligence (AI).
In a detailed post on X, Buterin said the funds came from large amounts of Shiba Inu (SHIB) tokens he had received during the 2021 memecoin boom. Developers had sent these tokens to him as a marketing tactic, hoping to promote the coin using his holdings.
At the time, the tokens’ value soared, with a “book value” exceeding $1 billion. Buterin, believing the surge was a bubble, moved the tokens out of cold storage, sold some for Ether, and donated to several causes.
He gave about half of the SHIB to India’s COVID-19 relief through CryptoRelief, and the other half to the Future of Life Institute, which focuses on existential risks like AI, nuclear threats, and biotechnology. Buterin initially thought the institute could only sell $10–25 million worth of the tokens due to market limits. Instead, both organizations managed to convert around $500 million.
Buterin noted that the institute later shifted toward cultural and political advocacy, pushing for faster AI regulation in response to concerns about the rise of artificial general intelligence.
While he understands their concerns, Buterin warned that large-scale, politically backed campaigns with huge funding could create unintended problems or backlash. He said:
“My worry is that large-scale coordinated political action with big money pools can easily lead to unintended outcomes.”
Instead, Buterin favors open-source solutions that strengthen resilience to high-risk scenarios, such as better cybersecurity, secure hardware, and pandemic detection tools.
He also cautioned that AI safety efforts could lose global trust if they become linked to efforts by certain companies or countries to dominate the technology.
