2013 was a pivotal year in the crypto world. At the beginning of the year, Bitcoin's price first broke the $1 mark, and market enthusiasm continued to rise. By November, programmer Vitalik Buterin released the Ethereum white paper, which for the first time systematically proposed the concept of smart contracts, envisioning the creation of a Turing-complete blockchain platform — meaning developers could run almost any computational logic on the chain.

In the same month, the People's Bank of China, in conjunction with five other ministries, issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks," which instantly triggered market excitement. Regulatory voices materialized, leading to price fluctuations, and the market experienced a period of intense volatility. During this time, the stories of Bitcoin and Ethereum were just beginning to intertwine — one exploring digital gold, the other dreaming of a programmable blockchain. Looking back, the innovations and policy battles of that year laid the groundwork for the subsequent development of the entire industry.