- 2023 Sep 17
Ethereum (ETH) is a decentralized open-source blockchain system with its native cryptocurrency called Ether. ETH serves as a foundation for various other cryptocurrencies and facilitates the execution of decentralized smart contracts.
The concept of Ethereum was initially outlined in a whitepaper authored by Vitalik Buterin in 2013. Alongside other co-founders, Buterin successfully raised funding for the project through an online public crowd sale in the summer of 2014. During the Initial Coin Offering (ICO), Ethereum managed to raise $18.3 million in Bitcoin, with Ether being initially priced at $0.311. Considering Ethereum’s current price, this translates to an annualized return on investment (ROI) of over 270%, effectively quadrupling the investment each year since the summer of 2014.
The Ethereum Foundation officially launched the blockchain on July 30, 2015, with the prototype codenamed “Frontier.” Since then, Ethereum has undergone several network updates, including “Constantinople” on Feb. 28, 2019, “Istanbul” on Dec. 8, 2019, “Muir Glacier” on Jan. 2, 2020, “Berlin” on April 14, 2021, and most recently, the “London” hard fork on Aug. 5, 2021.
Ethereum’s primary objective is to evolve into a global platform for decentralized applications, enabling users worldwide to develop and operate software that is resistant to censorship, downtime, and fraud.