Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin came to India’s rescue while the country was being battered during the second wave of Covid-19. Daily cases saw a sharp spike last year from April-May, while hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen cylinders. Vitalik donated around $1.5 billion in cryptocurrencies to India’s Covid-19 relief fund and helped the country in fighting the pandemic. He donated around 500 Ethereum, 50 trillion Shiba Inu tokens, and other cryptos to India in May 2021.
Also, around 100 million Shiba Inu tokens were sent back to Vitalik in January this year. The Ethereum founder announced he co-founded a new charity organization called Balvi and moved the funds there. Moreover, the funds will be used for research and development purposes in the field of science and medicine. “I plan to personally deploy these funds with the help of science advisors to complement CryptoRelief’s existing excellent work with some higher-risk higher-reward Covid science and relief projects worldwide,” tweeted Vitalik.
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Vitalik Buterin Confirms Balvi (Shiba Inu Covid-Relief ) Receives First Round of Funding
Vitalik confirmed through a tweet today that his charity organization Balvi received the first round of funding. Balvi has received $2.5 million in its first round of funding. “Update from Balvi! (moonshot anti-covid effort funded by @ShibainuCoin @CryptoRelief_ ). We have our first round of funding recipients.”
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“@RADVAC project open-source Covid vaccine R&D. Focused on trying to make vaccines: Easy to make worldwide, without super-fancy equipment. Protect against infection and not just severe symptoms. Self-administrable, R&D out in the open.” he tweeted.
In other words, the funding money will be used for research and development purposes for Covid-19 vaccines. Nonetheless, the R&D will focus on protection against infections from the vaccine. A handful of people have had side effects from the vaccine and the R&D aims to minimize the effects.
“Excited to announce that RaDVaC has been awarded $2.5M USD from Balvi, in order to advance work to close the vaccine access gap. Balvi is a direct giving fund established by @VitalikButerin, for high-impact COVID projects,” tweeted its Research & Development wing.
Covid-19 Threat Still Remains
Above all, businesses are coming out of the Covid-19 induced lockdowns this year as cases around the world are decreasing. However, the threat of the virus still looms and fears of a fourth wave are making news. The new variant Omicron is still mutating and World Health Organization (WHO) chief announced today that BA.4 and BA.5 variants are found in South Africa. “In many countries, we’re essentially blind to how the virus is mutating. We don’t know what’s coming next,” he said in a press conference.
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While the overall daily cases have subsided, the threat of another variant still remains strong. Another variant that might cause lockdowns will be a death blow to the economy. Therefore, R&D to make vaccines much stronger and lesser side effects is the need for the hour and Balvi is moving in the right direction.