7 years ago, 8 people gathered in Zug, Switzerland in a rented house in the wood to decide to launch a blockchain platform called Ethereum.
Their names are Vitalik Buterin, Charles Hoskinson, Gavin Wood, Anthony Di Iorio, Amir Chetrit, Jeffrey Wilcke, Mihai Alisie, and Joeseph Lubin.
Many people may never hear all of them but some of the cryptocurrencies you may be aware such as Cardano and Polkadot.
Vitalik Buterin
He is the only guy that still working on Ethereum after it debuted in 2015. He is the spearhead of the Ethereum organization and continues to improve blockchain technology.
Charles Hoskinson
He got kicked out of the group in 2014 even before the Ethereum launch due to a dispute about privatizing the organization. Later Ethrereum chose to become a non-profit and Charles was forced out to create his own Ethereum in 2017 as Cardano and claimed Ethereum was inefficient from Proof of Work and unsafe. He implemented Proof of Stake as a better choice to Proof of Work for sustainable blockchain in the future.
Gavin Wood
He co-authored Ethereum’s White paper and helped developed Solidity, a programming language for writing smart contracts, and released on the Yellow Paper.
He left Ethereum in 2016 to start his own company to focus on Bitcoin protocol and Web3 Foundation to focus on decentralized internet infrastructure and technology. He then launched Polkadot in 2017. He also upvotes Proof of Stake rather than Proof of Work.
Anthony Di Iorio
He was the only co-founder who stayed in Ethereum until July 2021 with abrupt departure due to safety concerns but later change to the narrative on focusing philanthropy.
He founded a cross-platform cryptocurrency wallet Decentral’s Jaxx Liberty in 2018.
Amir Chetrit
He is the most low-profile founder. He met Vitalik Buterin in 2014 on the project called Colored Coin. He stepped down in 2014 due to his lack of input on Ethereum.
Jeffrey Wilcke
He was working on Mastercoin until heard about Ethereum. He got so interested in Ethereum and decided to write implementation in Google’s Go language on the quiet. Later the Go implementation turns into Go Ethereum or Geth. He then quit in 2019 due to personal reasons and worked on his brother’s company called Grid Games.
Mihai Alisie
He was involved in Ethereum until 2015 and he helped founded Bitcoin Magazine and served as Editor-in-Chief until late 2013, he also worked on Egora, a decentralized eBay for Bitcoin. He helped to help startups to open a bank account for funding through Ethereum in Swiss.
Joseph Lubin
He was the most experienced cofounder and helped to create the Ethereum foundation. He also founded ConsenSys to help startups adopt blockchain technology.
The regret
After 6 years since Ethereum launched, there is only one co-founder left to continue working on the original project, and the rest of the team members are either forming a rivalry or start their own blockchain business or go out on their own in different industries.
In conclusion
Ethereum becomes the second place in the crypto universe that no one could predict. It’s co-founders were doing something that either competed with the original vision or something totally different.
I guess that is why Buterin regretted it later.
What do you guys think?