ETHEREUM FOUNDER: 'I won't stop or slow working on crypto just because price memes and stupid jokes exist'

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• Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, clarified a tweet about him leaving crypto if communities in the space don't grow up.
• He said he'll stay so long as "there's also real social value that the ecosystem is working towards."

Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, clarified a tweet from Wednesday about him leaving crypto if communities in the space don't grow up.

Originally, he said he would leave crypto if all people in the space do is post memes about how much money they have.

He said on Thursday that "all" was the "operative word" in his original tweet, adding he would continue to work in the space so long as there are communities working on something impactful. Here's Buterin in a tweet:

Twitter

Buterin said coiners working on interesting projects should check to see whether they are eligible to receive funds from his advisor token donation fund. Buterin said the fund has distributed over $1 million.

"Never hurts to quietly put up an ETH address," he added.

The market for digital coins has exploded this year, with bitcoin and Ethereum leading the way, up more than 8,500%.

Also, ethereum has paved the way for hundreds of initial coin offerings, a cryptocurrency twist on the initial public offering process. Autonomous NEXT, a fintech analytics firms, estimates over $4 billion has been raised via ICOs, which help startups raise capital outside traditional financial services.

In total, the market for digital coins has exploded from just under $18 billion at the start of the year to a whopping $580 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com.

Buterin has questioned whether the crypto space deserves these eye-popping gains based on what it has given back to society.

"So total cryptocoin market cap just hit $.05T today. But have we earned it," he said in a tweet soon after the milestone.

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