I just came across a story that reminded me of one of the most legendary figures in the crypto world.

At the 2014 Hangzhou exhibition, a young Russian guy did something crazy—giving away 5,000 virtual coins for free. At the time, almost everyone mocked him, thinking he was a scammer. But guess what? Those 5,000 coins later skyrocketed to $150 million. This person is Vitalik Buterin, and those coins are Ethereum (ETH).

To understand this legend, we need to start with Vitalik’s childhood. Between ages 13 and 16, he was obsessed with World of Warcraft, especially playing as a mage. Once Blizzard removed his favorite skill, it completely changed his life trajectory. He realized that in centralized systems, players are always at a disadvantage. This epiphany made him start thinking about whether there was a way to break this model.

At 17, he discovered Bitcoin and was deeply attracted by the blockchain’s decentralization features. But the more he researched, the more he saw Bitcoin’s limitations. So at the end of 2013, Vitalik published a paper titled “Ethereum: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform.” The paper caused a sensation in the Bitcoin community, and some people reached out to collaborate with him.

In May 2014, Vitalik came to China to prepare for the Ethereum crowdfunding presale. That trip was met with both applause and ridicule—some even told him face-to-face that he was a scammer and chased him out. But he didn’t give up. In July of the same year, Ethereum officially launched its crowdfunding, raising 31,000 Bitcoins.

A major event happened in 2016. The DAO project was hacked, and 3.6 million ETH was stolen. Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation decided to perform a hard fork to recover the funds, but this sparked disagreement. Some miners insisted that the code should not be changed and continued mining on the original chain, which eventually led to Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Ethereum (ETH) splitting apart.

In the 2017 bull market, ETH’s rise triggered a mining frenzy. Since ETH could only be mined with graphics cards, almost everyone joined the race, causing GPU prices to soar. That year, ICOs became a new favorite for fundraising, with projects like EOS and Quantum Chain choosing to issue tokens on Ethereum. This frenzy lasted until September 4 before gradually calming down.

In March 2020, a bear market hit. ETH plummeted from a high of $1,500 to $87 as investors panicked and sold off. But this was not the end. Later that year, DeFi exploded, with total value locked in protocols exceeding $10 billion, and tokens like YFI achieved thousandfold or even ten-thousandfold increases. Most of these DeFi projects were built on Ethereum, further boosting its ecosystem.

2021 was another crazy year. ETH’s price soared to $4,850, a 16k-fold increase from its initial issuance price. Virtual land and NFT projects worth millions of dollars became hot topics of the era.

With Vitalik leading Ethereum’s transition from PoW to PoS and the launch of Layer 2 networks, new opportunities emerged. Many people created hundreds of new addresses to participate in testnet projects, waiting for airdrops after launch. This “free money” opportunity attracted countless enthusiasts.

Today, Layer 2 wars are the new focus. Competitors like ARB, OP, ZKS, STRK are emerging one after another, and the future of the crypto world will be decided by the competition among Layer 2 networks.

Watching Ethereum go from being ridiculed to changing the world, Vitalik’s story is truly worth paying attention to. It’s not just a personal legend but also a history of the entire blockchain ecosystem’s evolution. Currently, ETH trades around $2,290, and whether you’re a newcomer or a veteran, the project’s development is worth close monitoring. Ethereum has already become one of the miracles in the blockchain world, opening up new possibilities for everyone.