- On July 30, 2015, the Ethereum team officially announced the launch of the network.
- In September 2022, the blockchain moved to a new Proof-of-Stake algorithm.
- As of July 31, 2023, Ethereum’s capitalization reached $227 billion.
On July 30, Ethereum celebrated its eighth birthday – on this day in 2015, former Ethereum Foundation Chief Commercial Officer Steven Towle announced the launch of the core network.
The history of blockchain began in 2013, when programmer Vitalik Buterin decided to create a platform supporting smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps).
The Ethereum whitepaper was published in early 2014. The paper detailed a universal blockchain capable of performing a variety of tasks and automating contracts without intermediaries.
To bring his ideas to life, Vitalik Buterin created the Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization. In July 2014, more than 30,000 BTC was raised through a public crowdsale to develop the decentralized Etherium network.
On July 30, 2015, the Ethereum Foundation announced the deployment of a network of. Stephen Towle, the organization’s former chief commercial officer, wrote in a blog post that “genesis block has been successfully mined.”
“The development team thanks everyone for their support. We have made incredible progress since the first community meeting on Christmas Eve. Creating a world computer that is accessible to everyone has become a reality,” he stressed.
One of the most significant developments was the transition from the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake in the fall of 2022.
Today, Ethereum is the second largest blockchain by capitalization ($227 billion as of July 31) and a mature ecosystem. In 2015, the ETH cryptocurrency was worth less than $1. The maximum price of $4878.26 was recorded on November 10, 2021.
In honor of the network’s birthday, Binance cryptocurrency exchange head Changpeng Zhao (CZ) shared a photo taken on May 2, 2015. Vitalik Buterin stayed in his apartment and talked incessantly about the new blockchain. Changpeng Zhao admitted that he never bought ETH back then and considers it “a waste of his life.”
Another photo from eight years ago appeared on Pip’s Twiiter service.
Also, Vitalik Buterin was congratulated by Sandeep Nailwal, founder of Polygon. In early June, they decided to allocate $100 million for COVID-19 research.
The Ethereum founder previously held a live stream on Twitter in which he addressed bitcoin’s problems and gave some advice to the community.