Ethereum is a public blockchain platform that, unlike Bitcoin, was designed to run programs called smart contracts. It was proposed by the programmer Vitalik Buterin, then still a teenager, and developed by a group of co-founders including Gavin Wood, who wrote the technical specification; funds were raised through a public token sale in 2014. The network went live with its first release, called Frontier, and uses a digital currency, ether, to pay for computation. It became the base for decentralized applications, tokens and later non-fungible tokens. In 2016 the hacking of a project called The DAO led to a controversial hard fork that split the community into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. In 2022 the network moved from proof of work to proof of stake in an upgrade known as the Merge, which sharply reduced its energy use.
Before and after
- 20 July 2015Creation of Android Marshmallow
- 23 July 2015Discovery of Kepler-452b
- 29 July 2015Creation of Windows 10
- 29 July 2015Release of Microsoft Edge
- 30 July 2015Release of Ethereum
- August 2015Discovery of K2-18 b
- 21 August 20152015 Thalys train attack
- 10 September 2015Homo naledi is announced from the Rising Star cave
- 24 September 20152015 Mina stampede
More in Science & technology
- 1945Invention of computer
- 1964Discovery of rutherfordium
- 29 October 1969Invention of Internet
- July 2000Discovery of livermorium
- 15 January 2001Wikipedia
- 20 October 2004Creation of Ubuntu
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 21st century.