Vitalik Buterin - The Founder of Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin - The Founder of Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin is the mastermind behind the Ethereum network (learn more about Ethereum in this post). But who is actually the person Vitalik Buterin? Read all about the prodigy who made Ethereum so successful here.

The childhood of Buterin

Vitalik Buterin was born in Kolomma, a Russian city near Moscow. At age six, he emigrated with his parents to Canada. It soon became clear that little Buterin was a bright boy. In fifth grade he entered a class for gifted children. Later it turns out that he excels in mathematical programming and economics. An excellent foundation for the cryptocurrency world, as it later turns out.What is the difference between ether and Ethereum?Ether and Ethereum are two terms that are often mixed up. That doesn't necessarily matter, most crypto owners know exactly what you're talking about when you use one of those two terms. But there is a difference.When we talk about Ethereum, we actually mean the entire network. On that network, of course, it is important to have a token available that represents a value. After all, there must be a way to pay each other. In addition, miners must be able to earn a reward for the work they do. Those tokens that represent a value on the Ethereum network are called ethers.Thus, ethers are the payment units on the Ethereum network, making them an essential part of the whole. So when people say they bought Ethereum they actually mean ethers.

Vitalik's involvement with Bitcoin

Starting in the year 2011, Vitalik Buterin slowly but surely came into contact with bitcoin. In 2011, Mihai Alisie approached him to write for Bitcoin Magazine, one of the first new websites about bitcoin. Buterin is only too happy to accept this challenge. Until 2014, he wrote for the news platform.Over the years he got more and more deeply involved in the world of bitcoin and learns more and more about the possibilities of the currency. But at the same time, he also sees a limitation that the crypto currency has. After all, Bitcoin is only a platform for transferring transactions. There are no other applications.Buterin sees that blockchain technology can also lend itself to something else, something more. For example, to run decentralized applications on it. For him, this idea is the inspiration for a completely new platform: the Ethereum network.

The birth of Ethereum

At the end of 2013, Vitalik Buterin started writing the whitepaper for the Ethereum platform. At that time, he was only 19 years old.Slowly but surely, more and more people become interested in the project. Thus, a real development team emerges. In the beginning, the Ethereum development team consisted of Vitalik Buterin, Mihai Alisie, Antohony Di lorio, Charles Hoskinson, Joseph Lubin and Gavin Wood.In January 2014, Buterin presented the Ethereum project to the general public for the first time. At a bitcoin meeting in Miami, he tells the audience about his new invention. A few months later, Ethereum's crowdsale begins. At that time, interested investors can own an ether for as little as 31 cents.More than 31 thousand bitcoins were raised during the crowdsale. At the time, that was worth about 18 million euros. With that money, Vitalik Buterin established the Ethereum foundation in Switzerland. This is a non-profit organization that oversees developments on the Ethereum network.In July 2015, Buterin and his team launched the first version of the Ethereum network. On this network, developers can already test building decentralized applicationsThe rest of Vitalik's invention is history. In just a few years, ether has become one of the largest cryptocurrencies. The platform is frequently used to build new decentralized applications.

Ethereum Alliance

The growth of Vitalik's platform received a new boost when the Ethereum Alliance was founded in March 2017. This is a software platform for Ethereum in which more than 150 large organizations participate. These include MasterCard, Microsoft, Intel and many other organizations.The announcement of the Ethereum Alliance gives Vitalik Buterin's Ethereum a growth spurt like never before. The growth from March 2017 is also the start of a huge bull run in the entire crypto market. The Ethereum platform suddenly faces a huge amount of ICOs (initial coin offerings).

Vitalik now

Buterin is still working daily to improve his platform, along with a whole team of developers. He regularly shows off his work on the Ethereum foundation's blog. Vitalik Buterin is also very active on. He often has his opinions ready on a wide variety of issues, whether it's about bitcoin, Ethereum, or crypto in general.Vitalik Buterin continues to believe in his project. This is difficult in the crypto market, as there are always hijackers on the coast. For example, there are several platforms that want to compete with Ethereum. You can think of NEO or EOS, for example. Both have their own blockchain on which developers can develop decentralized applications.Here in Brickken, we are strong supporters of Vitalik and Ethereum, and this is the reason why the Brickken Token Suite will run on Ethereum. Read our whitepaper to find out more!