On June 4, 2025, Railgun (RAIL), the native token for the privacy-focused Railgun Protocol, experienced a sharp increase of over 10%, driven by market activity surrounding a notable transaction from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Initially trading at about $0.78, RAIL surged to a daily high of approximately $0.89. This significant price movement was accompanied by a 36% increase in 24-hour trading volume, bringing the total volume trade to roughly $432,000.
Buterin’s transaction, worth approximately $1.83 million in Ethereum (ETH), saw 693.9 ETH tokens transferred to Railgun. This substantial transfer sparked investor interest and marked a bullish divergence in the token’s recent downward trajectory seen since hitting peaks of around $10.30 on May 29.
Market observers also noted an additional movement where Buterin transferred around $341,000 worth of the stablecoin USDC into the protocol at around the same time as the ETH transfer. While the intentions behind these transfers have not yet been confirmed officially, similar previous actions by Buterin toward Railgun have drawn market attention. Historically, Buterin has made prior transfers to the protocol, notably sending more than $1 million of ETH in August 2024 and an additional $505,000 more recently in March 2025.
Buterin has previously commended Railgun’s capabilities, notably highlighting its effectiveness in protecting against the potential laundering of stolen funds from protocols such as zkLend. The increasing adoption of Railgun within decentralized finance (DeFi) underscores the growing acknowledgement across the crypto sector of privacy-focused solutions’ importance.
Railgun’s recent trading patterns show it is still significantly below its all-time high of $8.37 reached in November 2021 and was down approximately 10% over the past week despite the current rally. The recent price movement and transaction underline the broader ongoing conversations in the cryptocurrency market about privacy and security, especially amidst intensified scrutiny of crypto privacy tools such as mixers.
