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MISSION

​"The Ethereum Foundation’s mission is to promote and support research, development and education to bring decentralized protocols and tools to the world that empower developers to produce next generation decentralized applications (dapps), and together build a more globally accessible, more free and more trustworthy Internet."

​Ethereum has done a good job at its stated mission. Ethereum serves as a platform for a prolific number of projects, built on the Ethereum network. There are vastly more projects built on Ethereum, relative to all other blockchain platforms, combined. Click here to view numerical details.

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NICHE

Ethereum was the first blockchain to allow users to build their own decentralized applications (dApps), and launch their own tokens, using smart contracts. Ethereum developers invented a programming language called Solidity to better facilitate the new type of ecosystem. With over 2k projects built on it, Ethereum is the most widely used blockchain smart contract platform by a large margin. 

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HISTORY & TIMELINE

^Video Supplement to Content Below:

Ethereum has been developed since 2013. This is early, relative to most crypto competitors.
And Now...
To The Ethereum Time Machine!

Pre-Ethereum-

• Vitalik Buterin got involved in the world of cryptocurrencies by writing Bitcoin articles in exchange for (at the time) nominal amounts of BTC. In 2011, he helped found, and write for, Bitcoin Magazine.

​End of 2013- ​

• ​Ethereum White Paper is published by Vitalik Buterin. He thought that Bitcoin could benefit from a scripting language for building apps. Vitalik also dream teams-up with programmer Gavin Wood.​

​2014-

• Early 2014- Gavin works with other Ethereum core contributors to formulate the Solidity programming language, he then publishes the Ethereum Yellow Paper (direct link to paper), allowing for Ethereum to be adapted to more programming languages. Joe Lubin, supportive of the liberties provided by decentralized tech, also gets involved as an early major investor in Ethereum.
• June 2014- Ethereum Foundation is founded in Zug, Switzerland, to facilitate funding the Ethereum project.
• July 2014- Ethereum conducts its first Ether token presale.
• October 2014- Joe Lubin founds ConsenSys which goes on to become a massive supporter of the growing Ethereum ecosystem.
• November 2014- DEVCON-0 organized in Berlin to proliferate more education and support for the development of the Ethereum network.

2015-

• April 2015- DEVgrants program launched to provide monetary incentive for open source development of Ethereum.
• 2015- Ethereum Bounty Program launched in order to provide monetary incentive for finding vulnerabilities in the network, so they can be resolved. Ethereum also solicited third-party security audits to be conducted by software security firms, during this time frame.
• July 2015- "Frontier" release goes live. Users can now build decentralized apps and write smart contracts on the Ethereum Network. Miners also begin mining ether using Ethereum's Proof of Work protocol.
• November 2015- DEVCON-1 organized in London to organize top developers and investors in the blockchain space. This is when Microsoft announced it would use Ethereum in its blockchain as a service model, within their Azure cloud.

2016-

• March 2016- "Homestead" release goes live. This marks improvements to the software, also prepping for more upgrades and faster transactions.
• May-July 2016- Ethereum Classic hard fork- DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization built on the Ethereum network with over $150 million designated to fund Ethereum-based projects) was hacked. $50 million stolen using a known security flaw. Ethereum blockchain forked, marking two philosophies. One that stood behind the immutability feature of blockchain (Ethereum Classic supporters). The second that stood behind changing the blockchain to return the stolen funds (Ethereum supporters).    
• September 2016- DEVCON-2 organized in conjunction with International Blockchain week, in Shanghai.

2017-

• October 2017- "Metropolis- Byzantium" release goes live. First, of two, Metropolis releases The second is "Metropolis- Constantinople". These updates are designed to make Ethereum faster, cheaper, and thus more easy to scale, as demand on the network increases. Also designed to make Ethereum more private and secure. Metropolis additionally marks a transition where Ethereum's Proof of Work consensus mechanism becomes more difficult, paving the way for a Proof of Stake protocol (initially spearheaded by researcher Vlad Zamfir) which will eventually be the consensus protocol that runs the network. Click here for an article with more details on these updates.     
• November 2017- DEVCON-3 is hosted in Cancun.

2018-

• Vitalik donated over $3m worth of Ethereum to fund biotechnology projects, and help African refugees.
• November 2018- DEVCON-4 is hosted in Prague.

2019-

• January 2019- "Metropolis- Constantinople" release is postponed due to issues found in a security audit.
• February 2019- Newest batch of 2019 Ethereum Foundation grantees are announced, featuring projects largely focused on layer 2 scaling solutions.
• February 28th, 2019- “Metropolis- Constantinople” upgrade goes through, along with the “St. Petersburg” upgrade to reverse some of the original testnet Constantinople updates, that were found to have vulnerabilities. Click on the link substantiating this info for more details on the Ethereum Improvement Protocols (EIPs) that went into the Constantinople upgrade, mainly making certain transactions cheaper, and further preparing the network for a Proof of Stake, consensus mechanism.

TBA-

• Hopefully in 2020- The "Serenity" release goes live. This is the beginning of the “Beacon Chain” and Ethereum 2.0; marks the official switch from Proof of Work (PoW), to Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol. Once the new PoS chain is launched, it will be extended with data shards. Finally, the existing PoW chain will get updated into the new Eth 2 PoS chain. This is when all Ethereum clients will be using the PoS chain to receive network state info, and process transactions.  

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LEADERSHIP

Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum has strong and transparent leadership. Vitalik Buterin is the original founder of Ethereum. Gavin Wood has been extremely influential on development, since the beginning. Joe Lubin has been a huge force in attracting development and investments into the Ethereum ecosystem. Vlad Zamfir has been extremely instrumental in developing the proof of stake consensus protocol that Ethereum plans to switch to. There are numerous other technologists that support development on the Ethereum platform. For more details on Ethereum-based projects, and the people working on them, I highly recommend checking out DEVCON footage, available on the Ethereum Foundation's YouTube channel.  

I'm getting an archive together from a lot of the Ethereum DEVCON videos, so you can see some of the main concepts that are being worked on in Ethereum, how they've evolved over time, and who is leading the development.   

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TOKEN DISTRIBUTION/INFLATIONARY CONTROLS

Circulating supply as of Q3, 2020 = 113 million. 
Approximately 18 million Ether are mined, per year. 
Ether is not inherently built with a high level of liquidity. Developers are working on layer 2 scaling solutions to make transaction times faster, within the network. 

As I mention for supply of EVERY asset, ever- "The supply only matters as much as there is demand to outpace it. This is what determines price"   

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CONSENSUS PROTOCOL

Ethereum is transitioning from a Proof of Work model of consensus to a Proof of Stake model of consensus. See "Consensus Protocol Academy" section for more details on how each work. 

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SECURITY

DAO hack represents Ethereum's largest exploited vulnerability, to date. The Ethereum dev team decided to delay the 2019 Constantinople update, in order to further ensure network security.  

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MAJOR INVESTORS/PARTNERS

Many large and reputable companies have joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, and are affiliated with Ethereum in some strategic way. Names include:

• AMD
• Bancor
• Cisco
• Credit Suisse
• Deloitte
• Hewlett Packard
• ING
• Intel
• JP Morgan
• Mastercard
• Microsoft
• PayPal
• Samsung
• Shell
• Toyota
• UBS
• ZCash

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MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA

See Github, Twitter, and Reddit Data sections, under "Crypt Keeper By Criteria", for more details on each project's marketing and social media presence. ​

Ethereum has more of a market presence than most other cryptocurrencies. Ethereum has a relatively large and active developer and social media community. Vitalik Buterin and other core developers do a good job of representing the Ethereum brand. Ethereum's main market consists of top investors and developers of decentralized applications (dApps), which is aligned with their mission. Ethereum is one of the leading cryptocurrency brands, when it comes to good will, and name recognition. 

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NETWORK DEPENDENCIES
How Many Other Projects Depend on this Platform?

There are more projects build on the Ethereum network, than any other platform, combined. Click here for more detailed numbers.

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REGULATION

The Ethereum Foundation is based in Switzerland. Switzerland is notorious for being unbiased, in terms of politics and regulation. The fact that ETH's founder has ties to many different countries is in-line with the decentralized nature of the technology he develops and supports. Vitalik Buterin grew up in Russia and Canada, and is now reported to live in Singapore. 

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My Old/Original Ethereum Video that Explores Name Origins and Project Mission: