Vitalik Buterin is one of the most famous and accomplished cryptocurrency entrepreneurs out there; he is best known for co-founding Ethereum - the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and one of the busiest blockchain networks out there. Vitalik's Ethereum was one of the first to host smart contracts and changed the layout of the blockchain world for good.
Born in Russia, Vitalik's father was a computer scientist and hence was exposed to computers from a young age; his family moved to Canada for better opportunities at the age of six. Vitalik's genius was recognized by his school when he was put in the class for gifted children in elementary school.
Vitalik was keen on cryptography from early on in his life; he was a researcher assistant for cryptographer Ian Goldman who was formally a part of the board of directors in the Tor network. As a result, he was exposed to quality individuals and budding concepts like cryptocurrencies.
In 2011, Buterin accepted a job of writing an article in exchange for 5 Bitcoin, which were around $3.5(INR300) at the time. The job was posted by another enthusiast on the Bitcoin forum; he offered the job to anyone who was interested in the subject and was willing to write in exchange for Bitcoins. He kept on writing until the website closed because of a lack of profits.
In 2012, Mihai Alise reached out to Buterin for Bitcoin Magazine, a position that Vitalik would later accept as cofounder and become the lead writer. The Bitcoin Magazine became the first serious publication on cryptocurrencies and became a part of the print media.
In 2016, Vitalik was briefly on the editorial board of ledger. Ledger is a peer-reviewed cryptocurrency and blockchain-based journal that was one of the first on the subject.
Vitalik once reached out to Jed Mccaleb, the current CTO of Stellar(XLM), for a potential job in the company. Unfortunately, the deal fell through since Ripple could not support Vitalik's US visa.
Vitalik then published the Whitepaper of Ethereum in 2013 and was awarded a grant of $100K next year, which led him to drop out of college and work on Ethereum full time.
Among the various accomplishments of Vitalik, Ethereum is probably the biggest one. It is not just another cryptocurrency or crypto network; it is a sophisticated network that revolutionized the whole crypto world and paved the way for concepts like smart contracts and Non Fungible tokens.
Let us learn more about Ethereum in the next section.
The Ethereum blockchain is a Layer 1 blockchain that has a native currency known as Ether(ETH), the blockchain's major use case is not to be a transactional token but to be able to host smart contracts.
Ethereum's smart contracts are immutable protocols built on the blockchain with the help of Solidity- a Turing complete language. These smart contracts execute on their own when the conditions are met and cannot be changed. These immutable smart contracts can one day eliminate the need for lawyers and other intermediaries. There are three major use cases of smart contracts There are hundreds of major DeFi and other use case-based projects that are built on the Ethereum blockchain. ERC 20 is a standard for tokenized assets for people to invest in. The ERC 20 tokens are fungible, meaning one token is equal to the others. Some of the main functionality that ERC 20 tokens provide are: Transferability from one wallet to another Issuing and burning of tokens Displaying and maintaining the total supply ERC 721 tokens are nonfungible tokens, which means that every token is unique; these types of smart contracts are perfect for platforms that offer collectibles. Fundamentally speaking, ERC 721 is a lot more complex than ERC 20 standard because of the customization options with multiple extendable. NFTs based on ERC 721 has many use cases, including digital art and gaming collectibles. Not exactly smart contracts, DApps, or Decentralized Apps are the applications that can operate autonomously through smart contracts. These apps are generally decentralized, just like your device's applications. DApps provide the functionality to their users and are widely accepted as the future. Since DApps are community-managed, they thrive on community collaboration and provide an interface to smart contracts. If Bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrencies, Ethereum is a dark horse. It is considered a legacy coin and hence is in almost every whale and VC's portfolio. Moreover, Ethereum constitutes more than 10% of the cryptocurrency market cap, and hence its movements are an essential factor in altcoin's movements. Approximately 24% of all crypto owners own Ethereum, and the 24-hour volume is generally more than $10 Billion (INR 780 Billion). Ethereum is also one of the top coins used for transactions and is the biggest altcoin out there in terms of both market awareness and capitalization. Ethereum uses a predominantly energy-intensive mechanism known as Proof of Work(PoW) that requires computational power to validate the resources. Ethereum is therefore shifting the network to ETH 2.0, a Proof of Stake(PoS) mechanism that requires holders to stake their cryptocurrencies to become validators. Ethereum is not the first PoS cryptocurrency, but it will be a significant step towards the multichain technology that the network is working on. Multichain is a 'bridge' between a different network that would promote cross-chain interaction and decrease the network congestion that the network sometimes faces because of high data traffic. Ethereum's multichain technology will try to bring multiple blockchain ecosystems together and work out its goal of being the one computer for the whole world. Ethereum 2.0 will also impact the price and, more importantly, the coin's market capitalization and may even end Bitcoin's dominance, according to many experts. Vitalik created a gem known as Ethereum and has always been one of the leaders in blockchain adoption. Ethereum is one of the best blockchains out there, and the fact that it is changing itself according to the needs of the growing world makes it perfect for institution adoption and adoption on a local level. ERC 20 tokens
ERC 721 tokens
DApps
Ethereum: the king of altcoins
Ethereum, what the future holds?
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