A 19-year-old made it obsolete from his dorm room.
The banks called him a fraud. Now he processes more money than Visa.
This is Vitalik Buterin.
2013. He's a 19-year-old at University of Waterloo.
Obsessed with Bitcoin but sees a fatal flaw.
Bitcoin can only do one thing: transfer money.
Buterin wants to build programmable money. Smart contracts. Entire economies without banks.
He writes a whitepaper in his dorm room.
Shows it to Bitcoin developers. They reject it.
"Too complicated. Won't work. Stick to Bitcoin."
So he dropped out.
His parents thought he was joining a cult.
Professors said he was throwing away a CS degree for "fake internet money."
Every bank and financial institution called it a scam.
Buterin didn't care.
He took a $100K Peter Thiel Fellowship to build Ethereum.
2015: Launches with 8 co-founders.
2017: Ethereum hits $400. His net worth crosses $400M at 23.
2021: Ethereum peaks at $4,800. He's worth $1.5 billion.
Today: Ethereum processes $4 trillion annually.
More transactions than Visa.
Powers NFTs, DeFi, and the entire Web3 economy.
The kid who "wasted his degree" on internet money?
He just rebuilt the global financial system from his bedroom.
Here's the thing about revolutionary ideas:
They sound insane until suddenly they're inevitable.
When was the last time you bet on something everyone said was impossible?
What would you build if you stopped listening to people who've never built anything?
Go Build.
Ship Fast.