Who invented Ethereum?

Ethereum logo on a phone screen

Ethereum was first outlined by its creator Vitalik Buterin in an official whitepaper that arrived in 2013. 

Having first taken interest in Bitcoin two years earlier, Buterin quickly became an expert on the new technology, learning all he could while also co-founding an online news website: Bitcoin Magazine, where he would go on to write hundreds of articles on cryptocurrency.

While he was inspired by Bitcoin, he felt that it was too limited in its functionality, likening it to a pocket calculator. He believed that Ethereum would act more like a smartphone, with potential far beyond a payments system and store of value. Instead, Buterin wanted to create a platform that could build and support a whole new ecosystem of decentralised applications like financial tools, but most famously NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that have now become a new space of their own, expanding into arts and entertainment.

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