First, a long-time supporter has given MIRI by far our largest donation ever: $2.5 million per year over the next four years, and an additional ~$5.6 million in 2025.
This anonymous donation comes from a cryptocurrency investor who previously donated $1.01M in ETH to MIRI in 2017. Their amazingly generous new donation comes in the form of 3001 MKR, governance tokens used in MakerDAO, a stablecoin project on the Ethereum blockchain. MIRI liquidated the donated MKR for $15,592,829 after receiving it. With this donation, the anonymous donor becomes our largest all-time supporter.
This donation is subject to a time restriction whereby MIRI can spend a maximum of $2.5M of the gift in each of the next four calendar years, 2021–2024. The remaining $5,592,829 becomes available in 2025.
Second, in other amazing news, the inventor and co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, yesterday gave us a surprise donation of 1050 ETH, worth $4,378,159.
This is the third-largest contribution to MIRI’s research program to date, after Open Philanthropy’s ~$7.7M grant in 2020 and the anonymous donation above.
Vitalik has previously donated over $1M to MIRI, including major support in our 2017 fundraiser.
We’re beyond grateful for these two unprecedented individual gifts! Both donors have our heartfelt thanks.
