Who created Ethereum?

Ethereum was created by Vitalik Buterin, a programmer who proposed the idea in late 2013, working with a group of seven co-founders. Ethereum.org lists all eight founders and dates the launch of the network to July 30, 2015. Buterin wanted a blockchain that could run general programs, not just track payments like Bitcoin.

Who is Vitalik Buterin?

Buterin is the person most closely linked with Ethereum. Ethereum.org says he conceived the project in late 2013 and wrote the whitepaper that described it. His big idea was a single blockchain with a built-in programming language, so developers could write smart contracts and build apps on top of it.

Decrypt's 2020 profile of the founders noted that Buterin was the only one still working directly on the platform at the time.

Who were the Ethereum co-founders?

Ethereum.org names eight founders: Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood, Joseph Lubin, Jeffrey Wilcke, Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Iorio, Amir Chetrit and Charles Hoskinson. Decrypt reports that the group met in June 2014 at a rented house near Zug, Switzerland.

Several went on to build major projects of their own:

• Gavin Wood wrote Ethereum's technical yellow paper and proposed the Solidity language. He later co-founded Parity and led the creation of Polkadot, according to Web3 Foundation's Polkadot introduction.
• Charles Hoskinson left after a dispute over whether Ethereum should be for-profit, and later launched Cardano.
• Joseph Lubin founded ConsenSys, a company that builds Ethereum software.
• Jeffrey Wilcke wrote Geth, the Go version of the Ethereum client software.
• Mihai Alisie helped set up Ethereum's Swiss foundation and its legal framework.

When was Ethereum created?

The project took shape over about two years. Ethereum.org's timeline places the concept in late 2013. A crowdsale ran from July to August 2014 and raised 31,000 BTC, worth about $18 million then, in exchange for ether. The Ethereum Foundation blog announced the first live release, called Frontier, on July 30, 2015, when the genesis block was created. Ethereum later switched from mining to proof of stake in September 2022.

Who owns Ethereum now?

No one owns it. Ethereum.org explains that Ethereum has no CEO, board or shareholders, and is run by independent nodes and validators around the world. Changes happen only when the community and client teams adopt them.

The Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit, funds research, gives grants and coordinates development, but it does not control the network. For more on the platform itself, see what Ethereum is.