Recently, I’ve been thinking of a story about a young Russian guy and his decision that changed the crypto world.

In 2014, this person came to Hangzhou to attend a conference and generously distributed 5,000 virtual coins. At that time, almost no one believed him, and some even called him a scammer face-to-face. But looking back now, those 5,000 coins later valued at $150 million. His name is Vitalik Buterin, and those coins are Ethereum.

Interestingly, V神’s story begins with a game. He was once addicted to World of Warcraft, loving the Warlock class the most. But after an update, the developers removed his favorite skill. This experience made him realize a problem: in centralized systems, players never have a say. By age 17, he discovered Bitcoin and was deeply attracted by the blockchain’s decentralization features.

Vitalik Buterin found Bitcoin had limitations, so at the end of 2013, he published a paper outlining the vision of Ethereum—a platform to build various decentralized applications. The paper immediately caused a sensation in the Bitcoin community. In July 2014, Ethereum officially launched a crowdfunding campaign, successfully raising 31,000 Bitcoins.

But the story wasn’t smooth sailing. In 2016, a project called “The DAO” was hacked, and 3.6 million ETH were stolen. Vitalik Buterin and the foundation decided to hard fork to recover the losses, but this led to a split—those who refused to change the code continued mining, eventually forming Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Ethereum (ETH).

In 2017’s bull market, Ethereum truly took off. Graphics card prices soared because mining ETH required GPUs. Even crazier was the ICO wave—projects like EOS, Quantum Chain, and others raised funds on Ethereum, and even a virtual pet project could push ETH prices higher. This trend continued until September 2017, when regulators stepped in to stop it.

During the black swan event in March 2020, ETH plummeted from $1,500 to $87, leaving many in despair. But then DeFi exploded. Tokens like YFI surged by thousands or even tens of thousands of times, and the total value locked in DeFi protocols exceeded $10 billion, growing over 2,000%. Most of these projects are built on Ethereum, fueling its revival.

In the 2021 bull market, ETH soared to a high of $4,850, a 16,000-fold increase from its launch price. Virtual land and NFT projects became hot topics. Later, Ethereum transitioned from PoW to PoS, and Layer 2 networks were launched. Many started participating in testnets to earn airdrops, sparking another wave of opportunities.

Now, the competition has shifted to a battle among Layer 2 solutions. Arbitrum, Optimism, Starknet, Linea, Base, and others are competing, and the ultimate winner will be widely recognized.

Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum’s story is full of challenges and twists. From a mocked young man to a blockchain legend, from being attacked to the DeFi explosion, it’s not just a story of technological progress but also about how persistence and innovation can change the world. Whether a newcomer or a veteran, everyone should pay close attention to Ethereum’s development. This project has created countless legends and offers everyone the possibility to explore the future.