2015 was a year of global turbulence, with social events such as the Paris terrorist attacks, the Nepal earthquake, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the shocking dust explosion in Taiwan. Economic events included a sluggish global market, persistently low international oil prices, and currency devaluation in various countries. However, it was also in this year that Ethereum, which would disrupt the traditional global financial industry, was born.
Ethereum was launched on July 30, 2015, at 10:26 am Eastern Time in the United States. In an article titled “The Long-Awaited Launch of Ethereum’s Decentralized Application Network,” CoinDesk journalist Grace Caffyn wrote, “With a grand scale and flexible design, its goal is to encompass almost everything on the decentralized network.” However, the article also included the opinions of skeptics, who criticized Ethereum as “immature” and having “excessive ambition,” stating that there were still many aspects that needed to be proven.
The founding team named Ethereum’s first version “Frontier.” At that time, Ethereum’s technology was indeed immature and in the experimental stage, only available for developers to develop programs and participate in mining. Steven Taul, the former Chief Operating Officer of Ethereum, stated in a post before the launch, “This is just the beginning. The next step is Frontier, where the world will start to discover what Ethereum can do.”
Steven Taul’s prediction has proven to be correct. Today, Ethereum has developed into a thriving ecosystem with over 1.6 million weekly active users, thousands of nodes and communities, and a market value of up to $226 billion. Over the past eight years, Ethereum has not only ushered in a new era of decentralized applications (DApps) but also served as a launching pad for decentralized finance (DeFi), contributed to the NFT craze, and laid the foundation for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO).
In celebration of Ethereum’s 8th anniversary, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder and CEO of Binance, shared an old photo of him and Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin from 2015 on Twitter. Zhao joked that Buterin happened to be visiting Japan at that time and stayed at his apartment in Tokyo. Although Ethereum had not officially launched yet, Buterin was already actively researching and discussing Ether (ETH). However, Zhao stated that he did not buy Ether as a result and jokingly expressed regret for missing out on the investment opportunity, as it might have affected his motivation to start Binance.
Disclaimer: This article only provides market information, and all content and opinions are for reference purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or represent the views and positions of Block. Investors should make their own decisions and trades, and the author and Block will not be held responsible for any direct or indirect losses incurred by investors.
Tags:
CZ
Ethereum
Vitalik Buterin
