The video game World of Warcraft and the most transformative technology of our time share a common story. Like many teenagers, Vitalik Buterin spent a lot of time playing the popular video game before “tragedy” broke out. After three years of intense gaming, a centralized server switch destroyed Buterin’s game and caused him to leave the platform.
Of course, this wasn’t a real tragedy, but it was the catalyst for some of the most profound technological innovations that will transform almost every industry and likely affect almost every person on the planet.
You can be forgiven for not knowing who 23 year old Vitalik Buterin is because he’s not a household name – yet. Its best achievement to date, Ethereum, is only making its foray into mainstream narrative, so its name alone has yet to evoke the same reaction as other tech visionaries like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos.
However, Buterin’s main work on developing the Ethereum blockchain is already changing the world and is poised to be the definitive blockchain technology for the foreseeable future.
Buterin was born in Russia and moved to Canada with his family when he was three years old. His academic idiosyncrasies are well documented, including his early promotion to advanced grading courses, his ability to add up three-digit numbers twice as fast as the average person, and his early involvement with the preeminent cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
Vitalik sat near Russian President Vladimir Putin at the International Economic Forum in 2017.
Buterin’s father, Dmitry, a computer programmer, introduced him to Bitcoin when Buterin was 17 years old. He’s a college dropout, political activist, and brilliant developer.
The combination of strong personal beliefs and academic excellence initially created a social isolation that led Buterin to lead the development of one of the most promising technologies in the world. In doing so, he has asserted an influence that competes with experts who are decades older.
Bitcoin and beginnings
While Buterin is best known for his development of Ethereum (which is believed to be the main competitor of Bitcoin), his foray into cryptocurrency actually began as a Bitcoin blogger and a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine. Buterin admits that he initially had doubts about the viability of the cryptocurrency. In his professional profile he writes,
“At first I was skeptical and didn’t understand how it can have any value without physical support.”
Through his work with the magazine, Buterin would cover various aspects of the emerging currency in depth and he would travel the world spending time on various cryptocurrency projects. These meetings revealed a whole community of people developing services around Bitcoin and its underlying framework, the blockchain. Convinced of the ease of use and practicality of the cryptocurrency, Buterin saw a shortcoming in their endeavors.
Through his work with the magazine, Buterin would extensively cover various aspects of the emerging currency and travel the world spending time on various cryptocurrency projects.
These developers focused too much on Bitcoin’s unique approach to cryptocurrency which primarily enabled P2P transactions. Buterin saw the blockchain as a transformative tool that could improve almost anything by making it cheaper, more efficient, and more transparent. From then on, Buterin turned his attention away from Bitcoin and started developing Ethereum.
Attach the blockchain
The blockchain is a decentralized ledger that records information and enables smart contracts; its spread is primarily thanks to Buterine. The Ethereum whitepaper was published in 2014 and marks the beginning of the Ethereum blockchain, which greatly expands the purpose and capabilities of the technology.
Buterin has strong political convictions. In an interview with Wired, Buterin claims that he “regards anything to do with either government or regulation or corporate control as simply evil”. He goes on to explain that his political views have made some progress, although there are clear links between this worldview and the underlying philosophy of Ethereum.
It should be a disruptor and a game changer for everyone and everything that can develop on their platform.
Speaking at the 2017 TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Vitalik stated that within a few years, Ethereum will be able to hit Visa in transaction capacity.
Almost every major trend in cryptocurrency is linked in some way to Ethereum, including the rise of ICOs, the broad expressions of tokens, and the fintech movement in finance – all of which are made possible by Ethereum’s blockchain technology. In addition, decentralized applications are restructuring entire work processes such as finance, cloud computing and messaging.
The Ethereum blockchain is Buterin’s major work, but it’s far from finished. Its value has increased more than 2,000% this year as developers, institutions and governments begin to explore the platform as a way to modernize their operations for the next century of development.
Buterin and his team are hardworking Potentialize advancing the blockchain towards its best version of itself. In the meantime, Buterin continues to provide his expertise on the cryptocurrency movement in general and Ethereum in particular.
A living ambition
Even after co-founding Ethereum, Buterin continues to be an important voice in the crypto ecosystem. This week, Buterin spoke about the ICO boom, which has raised over $ 1 billion in funding for companies issuing unique tokens, often built on the Ethereum network. Buterin clearly supports the idea of ICOs but warns investors, saying:
“What we’ve been seeing lately is that people are going too far with this idea… In the end, the market has to cool down. Many projects will fail and people will lose money. “
Meanwhile, Buterin is building Ethereum’s notoriety through the establishment of Ethereum Russia, dubbed “some sort of collaborative agreement” designed to “provide education, events, and architectural reviews … while also helping the development of the new center.” for blockchain research. “
Zug, Switzerland, also known as “Crypto Valley”. Home to the Ethereum Foundation and many other blockchain companies.
Buterin is an active developer with the Ethereum Foundation. He retains a high profile role directing the direction of Ethereum while serving as an evangelist and partly professor of the nature and possibility of cryptocurrency.
It is uncertain what cryptocurrencies will look like ten years from now, but Vitalik Buterin will be at the forefront of this discussion. advocates decentralization, transparency and progress. Instead of playing World of Warcraft, Buterin is building a real world of her own, and this time it probably won’t fail.
If you want to learn more about Vitalik and Ethereum, check out this September 2017 video of Vitalik speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt.
Posted in: Ethereum, people 
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