Vitalik Buterin is a co-founder and inventor of ethereum/">ETHereum, described as a "decentralised mining network and software development platform rolled into one"that facilitates the creation of new cryptocurrencies and programs that share a single blockchain(a cryptographic transaction ledger).
Buterin first described ETHereum in a white paperin November 2013.Buterin had argued that bitcoin/">bitcoin needed a scripting language for application development. But when he failed to gain agreement, he proposed development of a new platform with a more general scripting language.
The ETHereum white paper was circulated and interest grew in the new protocol in late 2013 and early 2014. Vitalik Buterin announced Ethereum more publicly at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miamion 26 January. Buterin delivered a 25-minute speech, describing the general-purpose global computer operating on a decentralized permissionless network, ending with potential uses for Ethereum that ranged from crop insurance to decentralized exchangesto DAOs.
About the ETHereum Project, Vitalik Buterin said in 2020: "I am truly grateful to have the opportunity to work in such an interesting and interdisciplinary area of industry, where I have the chance to interact with cryptographers, mathematicians and economists prominent in their fields, to help build software and tools that already affect tens of thousands of people around the world, and to work on advanced problems in computer science, economics and philosophy every week."However, in a 2018 New Yorkerarticle, his father suggests that Buterin is trying to avoid the focus on him as the philosopher kingof the blockchain world, stating "He is trying to focus his time on research. He's not too excited that the community assigns so much importance to him. He wants the community to be more resilient."
Vitalik Buterin has stated that he was driven to create decentralized money because his World of Warcraftcharacter was nerfed, specifically by patch 3.1.0. He went on to say in his about.me bio, "I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007-2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage component from my beloved warlock’s Siphon Life spell. I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring. I soon decided to quit."
