Who is Vitalik Buterin? Genius in the Cryptocurrency Market

Vitalik Buterin is the founder and creator of Blockchain Ethereum, the 2nd largest Blockchain platform by market capitalization in the world and second only to Bitcoin. Although isolated from a young age due to his natural talent, this helped him discover the negative side of centralized power, and from there he began to develop the Ethereum Blockchain to develop decentralization and influence. biggest influence in the world. Through this article, Crypto Fox News will share all about the formation and development of Ethereum and about the people of Vitalik Buterin.

Source: TechCrunch

Who is Vitalik Buterin?

Vitalik Buterin is a Russian-Canadian writer and programmer. Before turning 20 years old, he became famous when he founded Ethereum - an open source, distributed computing platform based on blockchain technology with the ability to execute smart contracts.

Vitalik Buterin's Childhood

Vitalik Buterin showed a natural aptitude for mathematics from an early age. His favorite toy at the age of 4 was… the spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel. In elementary school, Vitalik was selected to attend a class for gifted students, thereby developing his abilities in mathematics, programming and economics. In particular, he can add three digits in his head twice as fast as his peers.

Loneliness is not what Vitalik chooses, but the lifestyle he has become accustomed to. Because of his high IQ and natural talent for math, he became an eccentric and isolated from his friends. Friends going out, after-school activities never invite Vitalik. He lived a long time without knowing the existence of something called: Extracurricular activities.

“In grade one, a lot of people called me a math genius. But there are many moments when I wonder why can't I be like a normal person?" – Vitalik said.

Vitalik Buterin's gradually changing perception

So instead of having fun with his friends, he spent his time playing World of Warcraft. And it is in this virtual world that Vitalik realizes the ugly face of centralized power. In Warcraft, he "swept to tears" to win the spell Siphon Life for his witch character. However, in a game update, the company removed this spell. That night, Vitalik lay awake and sleepless.

“I have come to realize that everything related to government regulation or corporate control is evil. I think in these social institutions, there are guys who sit behind their desks and happily say: Okay. How can I make trouble for a thousand people this time?”

This worldview of Vitalik is very much like the early adopters of Bitcoin and believe in the new economy. He believes that the strong hold too much power and that in order for society to be balanced, power needs to be divided among the weak. These are the bricks that paved the way for the birth of the Ethereum decentralized platform.

A high school student writes a receipt for Bitcoin (2011-2012)

At the age of 17, while searching for a direction in his life, Vitalik learned about Bitcoin through his father - a computer scientist. Bitcoin is only 2 years old at the moment.

At first he doubted the value of this new coin because it was not supported by either party. (For example, when the state prints money, it needs an equivalent amount of gold to protect the value of money.) But the more he learned, the more fascinated he became and wanted to join this new economy. However, Vitalik did not have a computer powerful enough to mine Bitcoin, nor did he have the money to buy it. So he decided to find a job related to Bitcoin and fortunately became a writer for Bitcoin Weekly with a royalty of 5 BTC/article (equivalent to 3.5 USD at that time).

Vitalik's articles caught the attention of Mihai Alisie, a Bitcoin enthusiast in Romania. In 2011, he invited Vitalik to co-found Bitcoin Magazine, and became the magazine's main writer.

How Vitalik Buterin dropped out of school to “All in” into the cryptocurrency market (2012 – May 2013)

In 2012, Vitalik graduated from high school and majored in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada. There, he became a research assistant for cryptographer Ian Goldberg – former chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tor project, a digital privacy nonprofit.

In May 2013, as a reporter for Bitcoin Magazine, Vitalik flew to California for a conference to meet all Bitcoiners from around the world. Here, for the first time, Vitalik sees the crypto community living and growing around this new economy: Investors from the dotcom era compare crypto to the dawn of the Internet, showcase booths hardware wallets, Bitcoin trading platforms and Bitcoin ATMs…

“That moment really moved me. It convinced me that the adventure was worth taking,” Vitalik recalls. So he decided to drop out of college to dive deeper into this bubbling cryptocurrency wave.

The journey to pave the way for Crypto (October 5, 2013)

Vitalik started traveling around the world, learning about crypto projects in different countries. He noticed these projects were all trying to build layers on top of Bitcoin. This creates serious security problems because Bitcoin's construction language is designed to limit the complexity of transactions.

Vitalik discovered that if he used the Turing programming language to create a new version of Bitcoin, he could provide unimaginable digital services such as: reinventing Facebook, aggregating the stock market, building an engineering consortium. number is not controlled by the government… However, in return for Vitalik's efforts, no one agreed to cooperate with him. The founder of Ethereum, has single-handedly built his own project.

Ethereum – New History of Crypto

In November 2013, a month after returning home, Vitalik perfected his idea with the Ethereum white paper and sent it to his friends. Everyone loves the idea of ​​Ethereum and about 30 people have reached out to Vitalik to discuss the opportunity.

On January 26, 2014, Vitalik announced Ethereum at the North American Bitcoin Conference held in Miami. He describes it as a global computer running on a decentralized network with potential applications such as insurance, decentralized exchange or DAO… Stepping down the podium, Vitalik was enthusiastically applauded by those who believed in Ethereum will be the great “successor” of Bitcoin.

A few months after the conference, Ethereum held an ICO for Ether – the network’s native token – and successfully raised 31,000 BTC (equivalent to 18 million USD at that time). The Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss-based non-profit organization at the time, was established to oversee the development of Ethereum's open source software.

In 2015, Frontier – the first fully functional version of Ethereum was officially launched. The platform's rapid success has attracted the attention of tech giants like IBM and Microsoft.

Vitalik Buterin and the Future – Ethereum 2.0

Ethereum is being upgraded to Ethereum 2.0 (or Serenity) by moving from Proof Of Work to Proof Of Stake share). The upgrade will make Ethereum fast, efficient, and scalable. Also, using Proof Of Stake will cost about 99.95% less energy than Proof Of Work.

This upgrade consists of three separate releases, taking place at three different times:

• Beacon Chain: Launching in 2020 adds staking functionality to Ethereum and pave the way for future upgrades.
• Consolidation: Ethereum consolidation is scheduled to launch in Q2/2022. The Beacon chain will now be combined with the main Ethereum network to help support staking and mark the end of mining.
• Chain of Shard: This phase represents the fork of the Ethereum network, taking place in stages that increase Ethereum's ability to process transactions, store and access data. The Shard Chain is scheduled to launch in 2023.

Ethereum upgrades are constantly being delayed. Vitalik shared that one of the main reasons why the Ethereum upgrade takes longer than expected is because the project team often conflicts.

“With our project, the biggest problem is not the technical side, but the people related issues. It gave me a headache. It is very difficult to make everyone happy,” Vitalik shared.

Even so, Ethereum is still approaching its 2.0 ladder. With Ethereum, Vitalik not only wrote his own future, he also created a platform that allows millions of people to build, grow and achieve their dreams, people he has never even met.

Aug 21, 2022