Ethereum dates back to a whitepaper published in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin. Later, in 2014, the project began development and received funding via an ICO that raised more than $18 million.

The Ethereum network went live in July of 2015.
Vitalik Buterin created the original Ethereum concept. However, other notable figures later joined in.

In December 2013, Vitalik Buterin, Anthony Di Iorio, Mihai Alisie, Charles Hoskinson, and Amir Chetrit founded Ethereum. Gavin Wood, Joseph Lubin, and Jeffrey Wilcke joined as co-founders in 2014.

Ethereum was invented by Vitalik Buterin, a Russian-Canadian programmer, in 2013. At just 19 years old, Buterin envisioned a blockchain platform that went beyond Bitcoin’s financial use, allowing decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts to run without needing a central authority. His white paper outlined the idea of Ethereum as a “world computer” where developers could create decentralized applications on a blockchain.

Buterin, along with co-founders Gavin Wood and Joseph Lubin, officially launched Ethereum in July 2015 after a successful crowdfunding campaign. The platform’s ability to support smart contracts made it revolutionary, giving rise to innovations like decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and various other blockchain-based applications.