Ethereum, as the 'second giant' in the blockchain field, is hailed as the representative of 'Blockchain 2.0'. Its development journey connects the evolution of blockchain from 'single payment tool' to 'decentralized application platform'. From an initial concept to now supporting a trillion-dollar ecosystem, Ethereum's 'past and present' is filled with innovation, controversy, and breakthroughs.
1. Past: From Conceptual Germination to Mainnet Launch (2013-2015)
The story of Ethereum began with a rethinking of the 'potential of blockchain'.
Background: Bitcoin's limitations and the desire for breakthroughs
After Bitcoin's birth in 2009, it proved the feasibility of blockchain as a 'decentralized ledger', but it was always positioned as 'peer-to-peer electronic cash', with a scripting language that only supported simple transaction logic, unable to achieve complex functionalities. In 2013, a 19-year-old Russian-Canadian named Vitalik Buterin keenly discovered while participating in the Bitcoin community that blockchain should not only serve as 'digital cash'; it should be able to run more complex programs — such as decentralized social networks, financial tools, games, etc.Vitalik believed that a 'universal blockchain platform' was needed, allowing developers to write 'smart contracts' (automated executable code) to build decentralized applications (DApps). This idea became the core starting point of Ethereum.
White Paper and Team: From blueprint to team formation
At the end of 2013, Vitalik wrote the Ethereum white paper, formally proposing the concept of a 'decentralized application platform'. His ideas attracted a group of core developers:Gavin Wood: Developed the smart contract programming language Solidity, wrote the Ethereum technical core (yellow paper), defining Ethereum's underlying logic;
Joseph Lubin: Later founded blockchain giant ConsenSys, promoting the implementation of the Ethereum ecosystem;
Anthony Di Iorio: Early financial supporter;
Charles Hoskinson: Involved in early planning, later left due to ideological differences and founded Cardano.
In 2014, the team raised funds through an ICO (Initial Coin Offering): selling at a rate of 0.0005 Bitcoin / ETH, raising approximately 18,000 Bitcoins (worth about $20 million at that time), laying the foundation for development.
Mainnet Launch: From 'Frontier' to 'Homestead'
On July 30, 2015, the Ethereum mainnet 'Frontier' version went live, belonging to the testing phase and was only open to developers. At this time, Ethereum was still very rudimentary: there was no graphical interface wallet, transfers required code input, and block rewards were 5 ETH.On March 14, 2016, Ethereum upgraded to the 'Homestead' version, marking the official version's launch — this day is considered the node of Ethereum's 'official birth'.
2. Present Life: Growing from Crisis to the Rise of the Ecological Empire (2016 to Present)
Ethereum's 'present life' has not been smooth sailing; it has iterated through controversies, adjusted through crises, and ultimately built the world's most prosperous blockchain ecosystem.
1. Early Growing Pains: The DAO Incident and the First Test of Blockchain Governance (2016)
In 2016, a project called 'DAO' (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) emerged on Ethereum — it raised about $150 million through an ICO (the largest ICO at that time), aiming to become a 'decentralized venture capital fund'. However, in June of the same year, hackers exploited a vulnerability in the smart contract and transferred approximately $50 million worth of ETH from the DAO.
This incident forced the Ethereum community to make a difficult choice:
One group advocated 'code is law' and rejected intervention;
Another group believed that user losses should be salvaged and supported rolling back transactions through a 'hard fork' (modifying blockchain rules).
Ultimately, the faction supporting the fork won: on July 20, 2016, Ethereum split into two chains — the new chain retained the name 'Ethereum' (ETH), while the old chain was called 'Ethereum Classic' (ETC). This event established the gene of 'flexible governance' in Ethereum, contrasting sharply with Bitcoin's concept of 'absolute decentralization'. 2. Ecosystem Explosion: From the ICO Boom to the DeFi and NFT Revolution (2017-2020) In 2017, Ethereum experienced its first ecosystem explosion.
ERC-20 Standard and the ICO Craze: Developers proposed the ERC-20 token standard (a unified token issuance rule), enabling any project to quickly issue tokens on Ethereum. This directly ignited the ICO boom — in 2017, global ICO financing exceeded $6 billion, with over 90% based on Ethereum. The price of ETH soared from $8 at the beginning of 2017 to $1,400 by the end of the year, with a market capitalization briefly exceeding $100 billion.
The Sprouting of DeFi and Infrastructure Improvement: After 2018, the ICO fever cooled down, but developers began exploring more practical applications. In 2019, decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and lending platforms like Aave launched as DeFi projects, attempting to replace banks and brokers with smart contracts. At the same time, Ethereum's infrastructure (such as the MetaMask wallet and Truffle development tools) gradually matured, lowering the thresholds for users and developers.
The Birth of NFTs: In 2017, the Ethereum-based CryptoKitties, based on the ERC-721 standard, exploded in popularity, with a virtual cat selling for as much as $120,000, making the outside world realize the potential of 'blockchain for certifying digital assets', marking the starting point for NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).
3. Key Upgrades: From PoW to PoS, Ethereum's 'Coming of Age' (2020-2022)
Ethereum initially adopted the same 'Proof of Work' (PoW) consensus mechanism as Bitcoin, relying on miners' computing power for bookkeeping, but faced issues of high energy consumption, low throughput (only 15 transactions per second), and soaring gas fees (transaction fees). To address these pain points, the team proposed the 'Ethereum 2.0' plan as early as 2014, with the core of transitioning from PoW to 'Proof of Stake' (PoS).
Beacon Chain Launch (December 2020): As the 'core engine' of PoS, the Beacon Chain operates independently, allowing users to stake 32 ETH to become 'validators', participate in bookkeeping, and earn rewards. This step laid the foundation for the subsequent 'Merge'.
The Merge (September 2022): The Beacon Chain officially merged with the Ethereum mainnet (PoW chain), completely ending PoW and transitioning fully to PoS. This is the most critical upgrade in Ethereum's history:
Energy consumption reduced by 99.9%, resolving the 'environmental controversy';
Block rewards decreased from 5 ETH to 2 ETH, significantly reducing the inflation rate;
Security shifted from 'relying on computing power' to 'relying on staked assets', making it harder to attack.
4. Ecosystem Maturity: The Rise of Layer 2 and the 'Super Application Platform' (2023 to Present)
After the Merge, Ethereum's core contradiction shifted from 'energy consumption' to 'scalability'. As the mainnet's throughput remains limited, Layer 2 (second-layer network) became the solution — enhancing efficiency through 'off-chain computation and on-chain certification', while inheriting Ethereum's security.
Layer 2 Explosion: After 2023, the user base of Layer 2 platforms like Arbitrum and Optimism surged, with transaction numbers exceeding the mainnet, becoming the primary carriers of DeFi and NFTs. The 'Den Cun' upgrade in 2024 introduced 'Proto-Danksharding', further reducing Layer 2 gas fees and promoting the ecosystem towards 'low cost, high throughput'.
Ecosystem Diversification: Today's Ethereum ecosystem covers DeFi (with over $50 billion locked), NFTs (with annual transaction volumes exceeding $10 billion), DAOs (with thousands of organizations managing tens of billions of dollars in assets), decentralized social networks (like Farcaster), and more, with over 500,000 developers, making it the most active blockchain ecosystem in the world.
3. Future: Ethereum's 'Next Chapter'
Ethereum's goals have never stopped at 'existing achievements'. The team plans to further solidify its status as a 'decentralized world computer' through upgrades such as 'Sharding' (splitting the blockchain into multiple sub-chains to enhance throughput) and 'Account Abstraction' (making wallets easier to use, supporting social recovery and batch transactions).
From Vitalik's white paper to the ecological empire supporting tens of thousands of applications and millions of users, Ethereum's 'past and present' is not only a history of the evolution of blockchain technology but also a bold practice of humanity towards a 'decentralized future'.
