Vitalik's Unsolicited Shiba Inu Bag Just Funded an Open-Source COVID Jab 🧬

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has helped bankroll a COVID-19 vaccine now in human trials, with the program tracing its funding back to Shiba Inu ($SHIB) tokens he never asked to receive. PopVax, a biotech startup based in Hyderabad, India, dosed its first two volunteers in Melbourne, Australia, on August 31, according to the company. The startup said Balvi, Buterin's science fund, and the Gates Foundation put $20 million into the program, with Balvi's contribution originating from unsolicited SHIB tokens sent to Buterin in May 2021. The tokens arrived when Shiba Inu's anonymous creators sent Buterin half of the supply; he burned 90% of them, worth over $6 billion at the time, and later made a $1 billion COVID donation to an Indian relief fund. Balvi subsequently grew out of that same Shiba Inu money.

PopVax founder Soham Sankaran said the vaccine will go open-source with Balvi once Phase I ends. "We want humanity to have an even better head start next time: a broadly-protective, refrigerator-stable vaccine that any scientist, vaccine producer, or member of the public, located anywhere, can improve, adapt to their needs, and manufacture without having to worry about IP," Sankaran said in the company's announcement. Buterin also recommended PopVax to his followers on X, writing, "For anyone who is either a fan of vaccines, or a critic of vaccines but open-minded to the idea that vaccines could be great if they were made with a more open-source open-science and public-spirited approach, I highly recommend checking out PopVax."

Meanwhile, the meme coin that seeded Balvi's vaccine money is under pressure. $SHIB dropped 4.33% in 24 hours and is down 9.64% over the past seven days, according to BeInCrypto Markets data. The Shiba Inu team attributed the latest decline to forced selling within crypto, saying in an X post on October 12, "The drop was exacerbated by forced selling within the crypto ecosystem itself, a typical symptom of high leverage during pullbacks. Keep your heads up. We are all in this together!" Even so, the team said the market is showing early signs of a breakout, though no specific price targets were disclosed.