THE OPPORTUNITY
Making crypto count
As a devastating second wave of Covid-19 struck India in the spring of 2021, the crypto-born India Covid Relief Fund was formed with the goal to provide food, medical equipment, and even vaccines to those affected. So, when Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, donated 50 trillion SHIB tokens (worth about $1.2 billion at the time) to the Fund, the ability to convert that donation into tangible life-saving equipment efficiently and speedily was critical.
The Solution
Bridging the gap between crypto the real world
This is where Wintermute stepped in. Having access to more liquidity pools than most trading companies, Wintermute is uniquely positioned to provide liquidity in less liquid tokens. Through an exchange on Twitter, Wintermute’s CEO, Evgeny Gaevoy, proposed a plan to use their area expertise to support Covid crypto relief mission. Being a partner of USDC, the team at Wintermute trusted Circle with this critical conversion.
“USDC was chosen for SHIB liquidation by the Covid Relief Fund given Circle's swift minting and redeeming procedure, reliable transfer capabilities on multiple blockchains, and its worldwide presence which allows for efficient conversions to fiat”
Evgeny Gaevoy, Founder & CEO, Wintermute
Wintermute is now in the process of converting the SHIB donation to USDC in tranches, in an effort to put minimal downward pressure on the currency and to protect retail investors in SHIB. In their first tranche alone, Wintermute was able to sell 5 trillion SHIB, resulting in a total process of USD 82,861,797 for the India Covid Relief Fund. Even with the crypto markets for all assets crashing during the execution in late May 21, Wintermute was still able to avoid additional selling pressure on SHIB. Now, reaching about 80% of the conversion complete, proceeds are nearing the $400M mark.
With USDC, Wintermute is able to efficiently convert digital assets to fiat for life-saving efforts in the real world. Be sure to follow along as Wintermute is being fully transparent, giving detailed updates for each tranche and doing this all at cost, passing all savings to the fund.
