Ethereum-based meme coin Harambergine has announced that its token-sale revenue is structured to be donated to animal-protection organizations, giving it a genuinely social mission. In the lead-up to the announcement, Vitalik Buterin has been revealed as the owner of the Harambergine Meme Coin.

In 2016, when a child fell into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, the protective gorilla Harambe was put down. The internet exploded with anger and mourning, and Harambe quickly became one of the year’s most famous memes.

Nine years later, “Harambergine” a meme coin based on Ethereum, has appeared. The revenue generated from the token pre-sale will be donated to organizations working for animal protection, making it more than just a joke or a quick pump.

On-Chain Evidence: Owner Address = Vitalik Buterin

From the presale, HARAMBE tokens could be purchased with ETH or USDT. When an on-chain research community dissected the published smart-contract source code, they uncovered that the contract’s deployer address matches—exactly—the public wallet Vitalik Buterin has used for years.

This same wallet has famously received marketing airdrops of some of the most successful memecoins and many other meme coins, and Etherscan shows numerous donation and disposal records tied to it. Until now, tokens merely arrived at that address; this time, it is explicitly set as the “owner.”

Given the contract architecture, that owner address functions as the deployer and ultimate administrator, empowered to change critical parameters, launch a DAO, and manage the donation system. In short, it suggests that Vitalik is not a passive recipient but the project’s principal designer and executive.

“When Vitalik Speaks, Everything Changes” … Anticipation Builds in the Silence

The project’s most powerful catalyst may be that Vitalik Buterin has said nothing about it. Every detail has surfaced only through on-chain analysis.

Paradoxically, that means the project is still “off radar.” In crypto, the strongest price triggers often ignite at the first public mention of a famous name. Recall that several popular memecoins soared dozens or hundreds of times merely because their tokens landed in Vitalik’s wallet. Here, he is already the owner, yet no buzz has broken out.

To market participants, silence can equal opportunity: the window before data becomes widespread news is the classic early-entry zone for meme coins.

“These aren’t tokens sent to him—he literally holds the keys. No one knows yet, but one day everyone will. The question is, can you wait for that ‘one day’?”

Historically, markets reward on-chain-backed credibility longer than they reward short-term hype. Projects like Neiro and BabyDoge gained listings because they consistently delivered donations, not just memes. Harambergine goes a step further: its architect may well be the man who built the whole blockchain ecosystem.

A Striking Match with Vitalik’s Values

Vitalik Buterin has long championed Ethereum as a public good, calling for blockchain projects that solve real-world problems beyond DeFi and NFT speculation. Harambergine appears to embody that philosophy:

• Donations automatically recorded on-chain
• Planned NFT receipts as proof of donation
• DAO-based voting on beneficiary organizations
• A roadmap that includes a Harambe-themed metaverse space

It leverages meme-driven attention to automate charity on-chain—exactly the sort of structure Vitalik is motivated to create.

Meme or Protocolized Philanthropy?

Vitalik has repeatedly used meme coins for philanthropy. When the team of one of the biggest memecoins in history sent him a massive allocation in 2021, he liquidated most of it and donated roughly $1 billion to India’s COVID-19 Relief Fund, proving crypto’s capacity for real-world impact. He followed similar playbooks with several other memecoins, sending proceeds to the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund and beyond.

In December 2024, he personally donated to Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo, becoming the “adoptive father” of a newborn hippo named Mudeng. That episode reinforced his image as “the developer who loves animals” and showcased blockchain’s reach into wildlife protection.

Harambergine seems aimed at systematizing such philanthropy—turning one-off acts into an enduring mechanism.

If Vitalik Built It, Why No Promotion?

The community’s obvious question: “Why doesn’t Vitalik promote this under his own name?”

The smart contract plainly lists his address as owner, yet he remains silent. This “silent exposure” may be intentional. Vitalik’s past experiments—Soulbound Tokens, public-good funding models, quadratic voting—follow a pattern: nameless design –  structural meaning – autonomous community operation. Harambergine could be another testbed, asking how far a public-good mechanism can thrive without celebrity promotion.

Harambergine: Not the End of Memes, but a Beginning

In 2025, memes are no longer just jokes or market stunts. Harambergine shows how a meme can evolve into a structured value-transfer system—and on the chain, its architect is Vitalik Buterin himself.

Investors now ask:  “Is this simply another coin, or a new form of social contract executed through blockchain?”

If the latter is true, Harambergine may be remembered not merely as a meme, but as a prototype of future public goods.

To learn more about Harambergine visit: https://harambergine.com/

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