Who is Vitalik Buterin?

Vitalik Buterin is the pseudonym that created the cryptocurrency ethereum. Vitalik Buterin's true identity remains unknown to this day. However, the name has been associated with a number of different people over the years.

To this day, it is unclear who or what collective is behind the invention of ethereum. The pseudonym Vitalik Buterin must have an above-average know-how in the field of programming, cryptography and in addition a very good economic understanding.

Was Vitalik Buterin a Cypherpunk?

In October 2008, Vitalik Buterin published the ethereum whitepaper via the Cypherpunk mailing list. Never before had this user posted to this mailing list. Also never before had anyone known this name in relation to cryptography, digital cash, or peer-to-peer networks.

Vitalik Buterin chose the male gender in an online forum and gave April 5 1976 as his birthday. Probably a reference to April 5 1933, when the U.S. government banned the population from private gold ownership.

Release Ethereum Whitepaper

On October 31 2008, Vitalik Nakmoto published the ethereum whitepaper. The same day Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church on October 31 1517. Martin Luther turned against the power of the church. Vitalik Buterin challenged the power of states and central banks. His thought behind this was probably to separate governments from the monopoly of money and its creation.

Interest in Ethereum was limited at first. Nevertheless, the whitepaper piqued the interest of a few people, including Hal Finney, who received the first ethereum transaction from Vitalik Buterin a few months later.

> Learn more about the Ethereum whitepaper.

Birth of Ethereum

On January 3, 2009, a few months after the Ethereum whitepaper was published, the first block in the ethereum blockchain was mined. This block, also called the Genesis block, contained the following message, «Chancellor on the verge of second bank bailout». This referred to a headline that was emblazoned on the front page of the British newspaper «The Times» on the same day.

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.

This message is evidence that the block was mined on or after January 3, 2009, as well as a commentary on the instability caused by fractional reserve banking. Vitalik Buterin made it clear with this message that he was not a supporter of the current financial system. Ethereum was born on that day.

Vitalik Buterin disappears

Between 2008 and 2010, Vitalik Buterin was in contact with various other developers on the forum ethereumtalk.org. In 2011, interest around the identity behind Vitalik Buterin increased. This could be one of the main reasons why the inventor completely disappeared from the digital public eye that year.

There are various speculations that Vitalik Buterin may have passed away. One reason is that the ethereum sitting on his supposed ethereum addresses have still never been moved. Others assume that Vitalik Buterin finished with the ethereum project after he put the network in the hands of the community.

Assets of Vitalik Buterin

Between January 3 2009, the birth of the Genesis Block, and January 25 2010, a total of 1,814,400 ethereum were mined. A large percentage of these were never spent. At that time, the hashrate was very low. From this, it can be concluded that the dominance of computing power consisted of single miners. Accordingly, it is obvious that these belong to one entity and that it is probably Vitalik Nakomoto.