• The MOODENG token, inspired by the Thai baby hippo Moo Deng, experienced a nearly 500% price increase in 24 hours.

• Vitalik Buterin mentioned the memecoin on his social media post and sold 10 billion MOODENG tokens for 308.69 ETH, donating the proceeds to charity.

• Buterin also said "... best thing for memecoins is if they can be maximally positive-sum for the world."

A memecoin themed after viral Thai zoo hippo Moo Deng zoomed nearly 500%, before paring gains, in the past 24 hours as traders viewed a social media mention by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin as a positive catalyst.

Buterin sold 10 billion MOODENG for 308.69 ether {{ETH}}, worth $762K at current prices, and transferred 260 ETH, or $642,000, to the charity Kanro earlier on Monday. His publicly-known Ethereum address vitalik.eth still holds 40 billion MOODENG tokens, worth over $8 million at current prices.

The team sent Buterin a portion of its supply when it was first issued in September. On Oct. 5, Buterin sold over $50,000 worth of MOODENG, alongside other tokens, for ether. Buterin regularly receives memecoins and tokens unsolicited as a marketing gimmick first popularized by Shiba Inu (SHIB).

Read more: Vitalik's Regift of Unsolicited DOGE Knockoffs Sends Memecoin Prices Plunging

The sales aren’t to fund his lifestyle and proceeds are usually donated to charity.

“I appreciate all the memecoins that donate portions of their supply directly to charity,” Buterin said in an X post. “Anything that gets sent to me gets donated to charity too (thanks moodeng! The 10B from today is going to anti-airborne-disease tech), though I truly prefer if you guys send to charity directly, maybe even make a DAO and get your community directly engaged in the decisions and process.”

Traders apparently took the sale and a token mention on Buterin’s X post as a positive sign as MOODENG prices surged right after Buterin’s donations, adding to a rally from last week. This brought the seven-day gains for the memcoin to over 2,700% as per DEXTools data.