I just came across a pretty interesting story that reminded me of one of the most legendary figures in the crypto space—Vitalik Buterin.

When this guy came to Hangzhou in 2014, he generously handed out 5,000 Ether at a conference. At the time, almost no one believed him, and some even called him a scammer face-to-face. But you know what? Those 5,000 coins that were sent out as waste paper later skyrocketed to $150 million. That’s the story of Vitalik and the Ethereum he created.

Speaking of Vitalik’s growth experience, it’s interesting that he was initially a teenager obsessed with World of Warcraft. Until the age of 16, when Blizzard removed his favorite Warlock skill, this experience made him suddenly realize a problem: on centralized platforms, players are always at a disadvantage. From that moment, Vitalik started thinking about whether there was a way to break this model.

At 17, he discovered Bitcoin, but the more he studied, the more he saw Bitcoin’s limitations. So at the end of 2013, Vitalik published that game-changing paper, “Ethereum: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform.” Once the paper was out, the Bitcoin community immediately exploded—everyone wanted to collaborate with him. In July 2014, Ethereum officially launched its crowdfunding, raising 31,000 Bitcoins in one go.

But the road wasn’t smooth. The DAO incident in 2016 almost caused Ethereum to collapse—3.6 million Ether were stolen, and Vitalik and the foundation decided to hard fork to save it. This led to the creation of Ethereum Classic (ETC). Interestingly, ETC later attracted a large number of investors as well.

The real madness began in 2017. At that time, ICOs became the new favorite for fundraising, and almost all projects issued tokens on Ethereum. Major projects like EOS and Quantum Chain came along, and even virtual pet projects pushed Ether prices higher. Graphics card prices soared, and miners were so numerous that there was no time left to play games. This frenzy lasted until September 4, when policies finally reined it in.

The crash in March 2020 was unforgettable—Ether plummeted from $1,500 straight down to $87, trapping many. But it was during this low point that DeFi started to explode. Decentralized finance protocols locked over $10 billion in assets, growing over 2000%. DeFi tokens like YFI surged by thousands or even tens of thousands of times, and almost all these projects were built on Ethereum.

The 2021 bull run was even crazier—Ether shot up to $4,850, a 16k-fold increase from the issuance price. Virtual land and NFT projects were valued at millions of dollars.

In recent years, Vitalik and Ethereum completed the transition from PoW to PoS, and Layer 2 networks have also matured. Now, the opportunity lies in participating in testnets of new projects—many have earned millions or even tens of millions of dollars in airdrops this way.

Talking about Layer 2, it has become the new battleground. Arbitrum, Optimism, Strik, Linea—these Layer 2 solutions are competing for users. Whoever can solve Ethereum’s congestion and high fees will attract more attention. Currently, Ethereum’s price is around $2,330, still some room below the all-time high of $4,950.

Vitalik’s story shows us that persistence and innovation can create enormous value. Ethereum has grown from a questioned project into the infrastructure of the blockchain world, and every participant has the chance to share in this ecosystem’s growth dividends. Recently, I’ve been following Ethereum and some Layer 2 projects on Gate—if you’re interested, check them out yourself.