Recently, I remembered the story about V God again, and every time I revisit it, I still find it quite legendary. In 2014, a young Russian guy came to Hangzhou, generously distributing 5,000 virtual coins at a conference. At that time, almost everyone thought he was a scammer, with only a few believing in him. And what happened? Those 5,000 coins given for free later skyrocketed to $150 million... That’s Ethereum, and that young guy is V God.

Speaking of V God, his story is actually very interesting. Between the ages of 13 and 16, he was obsessed with World of Warcraft, playing a Warlock character with great dedication. Then, during a game upgrade, Blizzard directly deleted one of his favorite skills. This incident made him deeply realize the problems of centralized systems—where all players are at a disadvantage. From that moment, he started thinking about whether there was a way to break this model, until he discovered Bitcoin at age 17.

The decentralization feature of blockchain deeply attracted V God, but as he delved deeper, he found that Bitcoin had obvious limitations. At the end of 2013, V God published a paper analyzing Bitcoin’s advantages and shortcomings in detail, outlining his vision for a smart contract platform. The paper caused a sensation upon release, receiving widespread praise from the Bitcoin community, and some people actively sought to collaborate with him.

In July 2014, Ethereum officially launched its crowdfunding, successfully raising 31,000 Bitcoins. But the reaction at the time wasn’t all support; some even publicly called V God a scammer. However, history has already proven everything.

An important event occurred in 2016—the DAO project was hacked, and 3.6 million Ether were stolen. V God and the Ethereum Foundation decided to perform a hard fork to compensate the victims, but some supporters refused to change the smart contract code, leading to the birth of Ethereum Classic (ETC). Interestingly, after the fork, ETC also attracted a large number of investors.

The bull market in 2017 was truly crazy. Major domestic exchanges launched ETH trading pairs, which was unprecedented at the time. ETH’s rise sparked a mining boom, with graphics card prices soaring. Meanwhile, ICOs became a new fundraising method, with projects like EOS and Quantum Chain choosing to issue tokens on Ethereum to raise funds. This frenzy gradually subsided by September 4, 2017.

The crash in March 2020 left a deep impression—ETH dropped from its previous high to $87, scaring many into selling. But then DeFi exploded, and in 2020, the total value locked in DeFi protocols exceeded $10 billion, growing over 2000%. Projects like YFI surged by thousands or even tens of thousands of times. Most of these DeFi projects are built on the Ethereum network, further driving its development.

2021 was another big bull run, with ETH soaring to $4,850, a 16k-fold increase from its initial issuance price. Virtual land, NFT projects, and other assets reached millions of dollars in value, becoming hot topics at the time.

Later, V God and Ethereum completed the transition from PoW to PoS, and Layer 2 networks were successfully launched. More and more people began testing new projects on testnets, earning token rewards once the projects went live. Many created hundreds of new addresses to participate in testing, earning millions or even tens of millions of dollars.

Now, as the Ethereum mainnet’s load increases, competition among Layer 2 solutions has become fiercer. ARB, OP, ZKS, STRK, and various other Layer 2 solutions are emerging one after another. In the future, the crypto space is likely to be a competition among Layer 2 networks.

V God and Ethereum’s story is indeed very exciting, full of challenges and twists. This project has created many legends, and whether you are a newcomer or a veteran, it’s worth closely following its development. For me, Ethereum has already become one of the miracles in the blockchain world, offering everyone the possibility of wealth and opportunity.