Vitalik's ten-year journey to build Ethereum: from skepticism to leader

In the summer of 2014, a young Russian programming genius came to Hangzhou, China. At industry exhibitions, he did not hesitate to distribute 5,000 digital tokens to people, hoping to introduce his revolutionary ideas. However, most people think he is dreaming, and only a few are willing to listen. Ten years later, this batch of tokens, which were originally considered garbage, appreciated to $1.5 billion - this is the Ethereum (ETH) that later became popular around the world, and that young man was Vitalik Buterin. From a skeptical fledgling to the undisputed leader of the blockchain world, the story of Vitalik and Ethereum is far more complex and exciting than Bitcoin.

The Awakening of God V: Thoughts triggered by a game deletion

At the age of 13 to 16, when he was addicted to online games, V God fell in love with the Warlock character in “World of Warcraft”. But a game update changed everything - Blizzard Games removed one of his favorite skills, a seemingly simple operation that left him with deep thought.

This experience made Vitalik realize a harsh reality: in centralized Internet services, players are always in a passive position, and all rules are set by the central party. From that moment on, he began to explore the question – is there a way to break this centralized control? It wasn’t until he was 17 years old that God V discovered Bitcoin, and the answer that had been seven years since he started thinking about this question finally appeared. He was deeply attracted to the decentralized nature of blockchain, but as he delved deeper into the technology, he gradually discovered the limitations of Bitcoin’s existence and the huge demand for more flexible solutions in the market.

Blockchain Vision: How Vitalik’s White Paper Rewrites History

In late 2013, Vitalik published a paper titled “Ethemum: The Next Generation of Smart Contracts and Decentralized Application Platforms.” In this pivotal document, he systematically analyzes the advantages and limitations of the Bitcoin architecture, then elaborates on a bold vision - to build a universal platform that enables developers to build various decentralized applications on it.

The paper caused a stir immediately after its publication. The Bitcoin community is widely recognized, and many industry insiders have taken the initiative to seek cooperation with Vitalik. In May 2014, Vitalik set foot in China for the first time in preparation for the upcoming Ethereum crowdfunding presale. He met with many industry insiders and introduced the new concept to them in detail. However, opportunities and doubts often go hand in hand—some people question his ideas to their face and even accuse him of deceiving. Despite this, God V stood by his beliefs. In July of the same year, Ethereum officially launched its ICO (Initial Coin Offering), successfully raising 31,000 Bitcoins, which provided a solid foundation for Ethereum’s development.

The DAO Incident and Fork Dilemma: God’s Choice

2016 was a turning point in Ethereum’s history. At that time, the community launched a decentralized autonomous organization project called “The DAO”, aiming for intermediary-free investment and fund management. However, this ambitious experiment fell prey to hackers who managed to steal 360 Ether due to a vulnerability in the smart contract code.

The incident shook the entire community, raising deep doubts about Ethereum’s security. Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation face a difficult decision: Should they execute a hard fork to recover stolen funds? The pro-fork camp believes that protecting user interests is a top priority; Opponents adhere to the “code is law” creed, believing that any changes would go against the decentralized spirit of blockchain.

Eventually, the Ethereum main chain led by Vitalik executed a fork operation and recovered the stolen funds. However, community members who adhere to the principles continue to mine and trade on the old chain, resulting in the birth of Ethereum Classic (ETC). The chaos after the fork unexpectedly attracted a large number of investors’ attention to ETC, with both chains each finding their own followers.

Business opportunities and chaos in the era of ETH mining

The crypto bull run of 2017 completely changed the landscape. More and more people are beginning to participate in the Ethereum ecosystem, and mainstream domestic exchanges have launched ETH trading pairs - a phenomenon that was unheard of in previous years.

The rise of ETH has stimulated people’s sense of business opportunities. Since ETH is mainly mined through graphics cards (GPUs), which are essential accessories for most computers, thousands of people flock to the mining army in an instant. According to statistics, almost 9.5 of the 10 graphics cards snapped up by mining users ended up for mining, and only 0.5 were used for normal games. This mining boom has created countless wealths and created market chaos.

ICO Boom: The first big explosion of the Ethereum network

Another phenomenal event of 2017 was the crazy popularity of ICOs. On the Ethereum platform powered by Vitalik, any team can easily issue tokens for crowdfunding without the need for traditional financial intermediaries. This feature was quickly adopted by entrepreneurs around the world - well-known projects such as EOS, Quantum Chain, and Filecoin have chosen to conduct ICOs on Ethereum.

Throughout 2017, the ICO market created uncountable wealth myths and accumulated immeasurable bubbles. Even a simple virtual pet game can drive up transaction fees across the network due to the tokens it issues on Ethereum. This gold rush lasted until September 4, 2017, when many countries banned ICOs, and the feast gradually cooled down.

2020 crash: The darkest moment of Ethereum and Vitalis

After prosperity, there will be troughs. On March 12, 2020, the global financial market crashed, the Federal Reserve continued to circuit the market, and cryptocurrencies plummeted. Ethemum’s price plummeted from $1,500 in the previous bull run to a low of $87 - a steep drop that resembled a free fall, triggering widespread panic and a sell-off among investors. Many people began to doubt Vitalik’s vision, wondering if Ethereum really has a future.

DeFi Revolution: A new practice of Vitalik’s vision

What is surprising is that there is a turning point in a desperate situation. 2020 is precisely the first year of the explosion of decentralized finance (DeFi). DeFi protocols leverage Ethereum’s smart contract capabilities to create new financial methods such as virtual currency collateralization, lending, and exchange. In just one year, the total value locked of DeFi protocols has soared from hundreds of millions of dollars to over $100 billion, an increase of more than 2,000%. Among them, the tokens of representative projects such as Yearn.Finance (YFI) have increased by a thousand or even ten thousand times, fully demonstrating the market’s hunger for new forms of finance.

These thriving DeFi ecosystems are almost invariably built on the Ethereum network, which directly promotes the reshaping of Ethereum’s position in the crypto world. V’s original vision of a “decentralized application platform” began to truly land.

2021 Bull Market: Ethereum surpasses expected heights

2021 ushered in a big bull market in the crypto market. Ethereum’s price has skyrocketed, reaching a high of $4,850, a staggering 1.6 times higher than its initial crowdfunding price. As the price of Ethereum soars, various assets based on its ecosystem are also rising - new forms of assets such as digital real estate in the virtual world and NFT (non-fungible token) collectibles are frequently creating sky-high prices. These phenomena became cultural symbols of the time, attracting widespread attention from global media and investors.

New opportunities emerge: airdrops and testnet wealth codes

With the successful transition of Ethereum from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) and the successive launch of Layer 2 (L2) networks, a new way to get rich has emerged. Many people are beginning to recognize the value of participating in the testnet of a new project - in order to improve the system, project teams often issue token rewards to test participants, which may be worth several times when the project is officially launched.

This opportunity quickly sparked a trend of following. Many people have created hundreds of Ethereum addresses, systematically participated in various testnet projects, and eventually earned millions or even tens of millions of dollars in benefits from airdrops. This phenomenon is known as “hairing”, and almost all emerging projects choose to use Ethereum’s ETH as the base token, which further strengthens Ethereum’s core position in the ecosystem.

The L2 era is coming: the future direction of Ethereum

As Ethereum’s mainnet transaction volume surges, network congestion and high fees become new problems. To address this bottleneck, Layer 2 (L2) scaling schemes have emerged. These L2 networks allow users to quickly settle transactions on it and subsequently submit transaction data to the Ethereum mainnet in batches, ensuring both security and efficiency.

Today, many L2 chains such as Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP), zkSync (ZKS), Starknet (STRK), zkEVM, Linea, and Base are thriving, each attracting different developers and user communities. The industry generally believes that in the future, competition in the crypto world will mainly occur at the L2 level, and the Ethereum mainnet established by V God will become the ultimate settlement layer for all these L2s.

The legacy of God V and the future of Ethereum

The ten-year journey of God V and Ethereum is full of challenges, doubts and breakthroughs. From a gaming experience of a young genius teenager, to the launch of a blockchain platform that changed the industry landscape, and now to becoming the world’s most influential decentralized ecosystem, this journey itself is a magnificent technological epic.

As of January 2026, the current price of Ethereum (ETH) is $2.82K, and although it has fallen from its all-time high of $4.95K in 2021, its position as the “world’s computer” remains solid. Whether it’s DeFi, NFT, gaming, or emerging AI applications, they are all looking for opportunities in the Ethereum ecosystem. For novices and experienced investors who are new to the blockchain field, it is still of great significance to pay attention to the development trajectory of Ethereum led by Vitalik.

This platform has created countless wealth opportunities and witnessed the collision of technology and dreams. In the long river of blockchain, the names of Ethereum and V God will always be remembered.