Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, sent 64 ETH to the Animal Welfare Fund and posted a public call encouraging others to direct more attention and resources toward non-human animals. The donation, confirmed directly by Buterin on X, adds to a pattern of animal welfare giving that stretches back several years. He described the mass suffering imposed on animals through factory farming as one of the larger ongoing ethical failures in human history, one that rarely gets the attention it deserves.
The post did not frame this as a one-off gesture. Buterin tied the donation to a broader argument about what he sees as real, measurable progress, both in how animals are farmed and in what people can eat instead.
Shrimp, Synthetic Meat, and a Slow Shift
Buterin specifically mentioned shrimp welfare. That detail raised eyebrows for some, but he pushed back directly. In a follow-up post on X, Buterin wrote that shrimp welfare is not a thought experiment or a fringe idea, and pointed people toward eyestalk ablation as a concrete reason why crustacean suffering deserves serious treatment.
He also noted that vegan and vegetarian food has changed. The old complaint, that plant-based eating meant pasta and salad and not much else, no longer holds the way it did a decade ago. Buterin said the quality and variety of options available today are far beyond what someone who tried and gave up years ago would remember.
“Good old low-tech vegetarian and vegan food has improved massively worldwide over the last ten years,” Buterin wrote on X, encouraging anyone who tried it long before and gave up to take a second look.
Synthetic alternatives are advancing too, he said. His position is that this century could finally see an end to the worst farming practices, not through a single policy shift but through the slow convergence of better technology, better food, and changing norms.
Not Everyone Reads the Optimism the Same Way
The responses to Buterin’s posts showed the limits of that optimism for some. Profnft.eth, writing on X, pointed out that welfare improvements are mostly concentrated in the EU and parts of the United States, and that the bulk of global production growth is happening in China, Brazil, and India, where those reforms have not taken hold.
As Profnft.eth noted on X: “The optimism on welfare improvements is interesting given factory farming numbers are still growing globally. Most welfare gains seem concentrated in EU/parts of US, the bulk of expansion doesn’t follow those reforms yet.”
That asymmetry is real and it matters. Regions driving the largest increases in animal agriculture output are not the same regions implementing higher welfare standards. Whether that gap is narrowing or widening is a question Buterin did not directly address in the thread.
A separate reply from X user christoshi questioned the premise from a different direction, asking why animal life is treated differently from plant life, and what led humans to consider killing animals for food a moral problem at all.
Buterin did not engage with those replies in the thread.
A Longer Donation Record
This is not the first time Buterin has directed ETH to animal causes. In August 2024, he converted animal-themed meme coins sent to his wallet into 200 ETH and donated the full amount to the Effective Altruism Funds’ Animal Welfare Fund, a transfer worth over $532,000 at the time. Before that, in December 2024, he sent 10 million Thai Baht to Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand as part of a two-year commitment to support wildlife conservation.
The pattern across those donations is not random. Buterin has been consistent in saying that crypto should be used for things beyond speculation, and that holders and builders have some responsibility toward causes that sit outside blockchain entirely.
His latest 64 ETH transfer lands in that same space. The amount is smaller than past donations but the argument around it is broader, and it lands at a moment when global factory farming output is still climbing even as welfare conversations intensify in certain markets.
