From Geek to Ethereum Founder! Meet the 27-year-old "V God" Vitalik Buterin

We previously introduced what Ethereum is and briefly mentioned the man behind Ethereum - the genius young man, V God, Vitalik Buterin. Today, we will focus on this young genius who, at the age of only 27, created a project with a market value of up to 11.5 billion USD (peaking at 134.7 billion USD).

(This article is authorized to be reprinted from Blockchain Plain Language. The original title is "Introduction| Who is the founder of Ethereum, V God? Original article here.)

A Genius Childhood

In 1994, a little genius was born in the city of Kolomna, Russia. Kolomna is not known for producing great figures; the only notable person recorded on Wikipedia is the ice hockey player Vladimir Petrov, suggesting it is not a place of great historical significance.

The father of the little genius, Dmitry Buterin, is a computer scientist. When he was 6 years old, the family emigrated to Canada.

From a young age, the little genius demonstrated his talent in mathematics and programming (perhaps his father taught him programming). His mental calculation speed was twice that of an average person. Like most geniuses, this talent brought him a lot of trouble: his peers considered him a freak and ostracized him, refusing to play with him after school.

Later, the little genius attended a private high school in Toronto. Here, he thrived, describing it as the "most interesting and efficient time" of his life. He excelled in both academics and games.

From World of Warcraft to Bitcoin

The little genius started playing World of Warcraft at the age of 13. However, in 2010, due to an upgrade by "Blizzard," some characteristics of his character in World of Warcraft were altered. Devastated, the little genius decided to delete World of Warcraft, showcasing his strong-willed character.

In 2011, his father, a computer scientist, introduced him to Bitcoin. At the time, Bitcoin was only two years old, and the little genius was just 17 years old. After hearing about Bitcoin again, he became intrigued and decided to research it, becoming completely captivated by the subject.

After some research, the little genius pondered if he could enter the industry somehow. Lacking money to buy coins or machines to mine them, he thought about finding a job that paid in Bitcoin. He found one: "writing articles for a media company on a forum, with a reward of 5 bitcoins per article."

The little genius began happily writing articles, catching the attention of Mihai Alisie, a Bitcoin enthusiast from Romania. They co-founded a Bitcoin magazine, with the little genius as the chief editor, all while he was still studying at the University of Waterloo.

A Genius Idea: Overcoming Bitcoin's Limitations, Creating Ethereum

In 2013, the little genius attended a Bitcoin-related conference in San Jose, California. Bitcoin enthusiasts from around the world gathered there.

Immersed in the friendly atmosphere, after the conference, the little genius felt that Bitcoin had great potential.

"At that moment, I was blown away. I thought this thing had a lot of potential and could be worked on!" he recalled later.

Upon returning, he dropped out of school, showing a similar boldness to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg in their early days.

He then spent six months traveling the world: Israel, California, London, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Amsterdam... visiting individuals and teams who were looking to improve Bitcoin.

After this journey, the little genius was somewhat disappointed, as he found that everyone was just making minor adjustments to Bitcoin without fundamentally solving its flaws.

He believed that Bitcoin should have a Turing-complete programming language added to it so that anyone could develop decentralized applications on top of it, not just limited to the financial sector.

This idea was considered far-fetched at the time.

When the little genius shared his idea with others, patient individuals might say, "This idea is not bad," while impatient ones would ignore him. Hurt by this, the little genius decided to pursue his idea alone.

Within a month of returning home, the little genius wrote his idea into a white paper and named it "Ethereum."

It is said that the name "Ethereum" was chosen because it contains "Ether," a substance conceived by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Physicists in the 19th century believed it was an imaginary medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves.

It's clear that the little genius is a true geek.

With the white paper completed, the little genius was a bit worried. Was he too young? Were his views too simplistic or naive? Could there be obvious mistakes? To address these concerns, he sent the white paper to a dozen friends for feedback. However, it turned out his worries were unnecessary.

Stephan Tual was one of those dozen people, and he later said, "After reading V's white paper, I thought, 'This guy is a genius, I have to work with him.'" He eventually joined the little genius's team.

Looking back on those days, the little genius was deeply moved:

"When I first thought of the concept of Ethereum, my initial reaction was, 'Is this idea too perfect? It can't be real, can it? Haven't others thought of this?' I had to find some professionals to pour cold water on me. But two weeks went by, and no one poured cold water on me; I was amazed!"

After a few more months, the little genius gave a speech at a Bitcoin conference in Miami, introducing Ethereum to the attendees, causing quite a stir. They then raised about 31,000 bitcoins for development.

In 2015, Ethereum officially launched, with the little genius being 21 years old at the time.

The Rise of Ethereum

The rise of Ethereum was not without obstacles.

On June 17, 2016, The DAO, an application on Ethereum similar to an investment institution, was hacked due to a code vulnerability, resulting in the theft of over 3 million Ether, valued at $60 million at the time, causing a sharp drop in Ether's price.

In response, the Ethereum community voted to change the Ethereum code to recover the stolen funds from the hacker. Some opposed the upgrade, believing it compromised decentralization.

As a result, Ethereum forked, leading to the current Ethereum (ETH, with altered code) and Ethereum Classic (ETC, with unchanged code).

Subsequently, due to the ability of smart contracts to conduct Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) on Ethereum, making it a star project, Ethereum surged in value, reaching a market cap of $134.7 billion at its peak.

Vitalik Buterin was hailed as a "god" by blockchain enthusiasts.

Undoubtedly, in terms of technology, Vitalik is a pragmatic genius, also known as a low-key genius.