Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time studying Vitalik Buterin’s story. The more I read, the more I realize that this guy’s experience truly overturns my understanding of genius.

When you mention V神, everyone in the crypto world has definitely heard of him. But do you really understand how this skinny Russian teenager gradually made his way to where he is today? Started using computers at age 4, wrote the Ethereum white paper at 19, built a trillion-dollar ecosystem by 24, and has donated over $1 billion. Now at 31, he’s called “stubborn” and “idealistic,” some call him “V神,” others scorn him as “Little V.” But regardless, this person has indeed changed the entire blockchain world through his own efforts.

He was born in Kolomna, a small industrial town on the outskirts of Moscow, where winters reach -20°C and summers are filled with factory dust. His father is a computer scientist, his mother has a background in finance, both are intellectuals. From a young age, he had a natural sensitivity to numbers—reading at 3.5 years old, creating complex spreadsheets in Excel at age 4—like the famous “Rabbit Encyclopedia.” While classmates played with mud, he was already studying programming.

In 1999, his family immigrated to Toronto, Canada. This move changed his life trajectory. Under Canada’s relaxed educational environment, V神’s genius was fully unleashed. He was placed in a gifted math class in third grade, won national awards in math competitions, solving problems that took his peers an hour in just 20 minutes. Classmates called him a “bookworm,” with a skinny build, round glasses, and wearing torn T-shirts—he spent all day coding.

But the real turning point came in 2010. At 16, he was obsessed with World of Warcraft until Blizzard inexplicably deleted one of his favorite character’s skills. It seemed minor, but it planted a seed in his mind—centralized organizations can change rules at will, and players’ efforts can vanish in an instant. He began to think about the power of decentralization.

In early 2011, his father introduced him to Bitcoin. At first, he wasn’t interested, thinking it was doomed to fail. But after three weeks, he changed his mind and decided to dive deeper. Without money to buy Bitcoin, he started writing articles for “Bitcoin Magazine,” earning 5 bitcoins per article (about $3.50 at the time). The quality was good, and Mihai Alisie, a Bitcoin enthusiast from Ronia, noticed him. They co-founded “Bitcoin Magazine”—the first serious publication dedicated to cryptocurrencies.

In 2012, he was admitted to the University of Waterloo in Canada to study computer science, and also worked as a research assistant for cryptographer Ian Goldberg. He won a bronze medal at the International Olympiad in Informatics. That year, he became a full-fledged Bitcoin believer and started contemplating Bitcoin’s limitations.

2013 was a pivotal year. At 19, V神 was traveling in Israel when he met a company developing smart contracts based on Bitcoin. He realized he could build a platform for smart contracts on Bitcoin, allowing users to easily write scripts. But the Bitcoin community rejected his proposal. So he decided to start from scratch.

In late November, he shared a white paper—“Introducing Ethereum: A Generalized Smart Contract/DAC Platform.” This document detailed Bitcoin’s shortcomings and his new idea: a Turing-complete, programmable, general-purpose blockchain. The name Ethereum comes from the “ether hypothesis” by 19th-century scientists. The white paper was initially sent only to a few close friends, but it spread rapidly within the Bitcoin community, causing a stir. Gavin Wood, the founder of Polkadot, was one of the most active supporters.

In 2014, the Ethereum project officially launched. V神 received a $100k Thiel Fellowship from Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook. He dedicated himself full-time to Ethereum development. That year, he also went to China for fundraising, gave a speech at a mining conference in Shenzhen, but was mistaken for a scammer by local bigwigs. He was also turned away when meeting Du Jun at Huobi. But he didn’t give up and eventually raised funds through an ICO. Starting July 22, Ethereum conducted a 42-day crowdfunding, raising 31,531 bitcoins, worth about $18.43 million at the time.

On July 30, 2015, Ethereum’s mainnet launched, releasing the Frontier phase. This was Ethereum’s initial version, designed for developers. V神 traveled around giving speeches, inviting enthusiasts to contribute code, and calling on miners to join the network. The Ethereum community began to grow active.

But 2016 brought a major problem—the DAO hack. Hackers stole over 100k ETH, about $60 million, accounting for 14% of circulating ETH. The market cap evaporated by $500 million. The community was in an uproar. V神 pushed hard for a hard fork to roll back the blockchain and compensate investors. Over 85% of miners supported it. The hard fork was executed on July 20, creating a new chain that kept the ETH name, while the original chain became Ethereum Classic (ETC).

This decision was highly controversial. Supporters argued it saved Ethereum; opponents believed it violated the immutability principle of blockchain. But the fork proved not to have killed Ethereum—in fact, it helped it bounce back.

In 2017, the ICO boom arrived. Many projects issued tokens using Ethereum for fundraising. V神 began calling for regulation, warning of bubble risks. But ETH’s price soared from $8 at the start of the year to $700 by year’s end, reaching a peak of $1,418 on January 14, 2018. He was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people. But 90% of ICOs turned out to be “air coins,” and retail investors suffered huge losses, criticizing him for “creating a casino.” He responded that “I only provide the tools.” Under immense pressure, he traveled globally for speeches, his frail body (weighing only 58 kg) looking even more exhausted.

In 2019, Ethereum continued to upgrade. The Constantinople hard fork reduced block rewards from 3 ETH to 2 ETH. The Istanbul upgrade lowered gas costs and increased TPS to 3,000. But gas issues never truly resolved, leading to subsequent Gas Wars.

2020 was a turning point. On December 1, the Beacon Chain of Ethereum 2.0 officially launched, marking the shift from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. V神 emphasized that Ethereum’s development would continue despite the challenges.

In 2021, Ethereum underwent four major upgrades. In May, V神 made a shocking move—donated about $1 billion worth of SHIB tokens to the India COVID relief fund, the largest single charitable donation in crypto history. He also donated $336 million worth of Elon (ELON) to the Methuselah Foundation. This caused ELON’s price to plummet 70%. He also donated $441M worth of Akita (AKITA) to Gitcoin. On November 10, Ethereum hit a record high of $4,868, a peak that still stands.

In 2022, the Russia-Ukraine war broke out. V神 immediately voiced support for Ukraine, raising millions of dollars through donations. In March, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine. In September, he announced Ethereum’s merge was complete, transitioning from PoW to PoS, reducing energy consumption by 99.95%. But ETH’s price fell to a near four-year low of $882.

In 2023, V神 pushed for the Shanghai upgrade. In May, at the EDCON conference, he said that with Layer 2 technology, Ethereum could handle over 100k transactions per second. In June, Elon Musk followed his Twitter. In September, he discussed crypto-based social solutions at the Permissionless conference. In December, he released Ethereum’s roadmap for 2024.

At the start of 2024, V神 published “My Technological Optimism.” In February, he gave a speech in Denver about AI and blockchain integration. In July, at EDCON 2024, he delivered the keynote “Ethereum’s Next 10 Years,” stating that future L2 usage would be as smooth as using the mainnet. But a sobering fact: since 2015, his Ethereum addresses have outflowed about 422,000 ETH, worth over $1.04 billion as of September 2024.

In September, the documentary “Vitalik: The Ethereum Story” premiered worldwide, chronicling V神 and the developer community’s fight for an open internet. In early October, V神 announced that any tokens sent to him would be donated to charity, then exchanged project-issued MEME coins for ETH—selling over 650 ETH (worth more than $1.7 million) from projects like MSTR, Milo, and POPCAT. On October 17, he spoke at the Wanxiang Blockchain Summit, sharing his vision for Ethereum’s future. In December, he announced he would become Moo Deng’s adoptive father, pledging 10 million Thai Baht to support it.

Early 2025, V神 released “d/acc: One Year Later,” reviewing progress in decentralized defensive acceleration. In February, he clarified rumors about his seat on the Ethereum Foundation board—he has held only one seat since 2017. He also discussed crypto asset losses, believing many weren’t stolen but lost due to software bugs, forgotten passwords, etc. In March, he changed his Twitter avatar to a World of Warcraft creature, revisiting his childhood hobby.

Regarding V神’s private life, crypto friends’ gossip might be disappointed. To date, he has not confirmed any romantic relationships, appears single, and is fully dedicated to blockchain and Ethereum ecology. In 2023, there were rumors of a romantic entanglement with a Chinese woman in the blockchain industry, but he has never publicly confirmed it. Some joke that he’s a “blockchain monk,” while others speculate he’s hiding a secret love life.

From a small Russian town to Canada, from a math prodigy to a billionaire, and now an advocate of the “decentralization dream,” V神’s story is full of drama. His achievements include smart contracts, ERC20 standards, NFTs, Layer 2 tech, and more—these innovations have directly propelled the entire crypto industry forward.

After reading all this, do you admire V神’s genius, or think his stubbornness is a bit excessive? He has indeed changed the world, but at what cost? That’s worth pondering.