Ethereum was conceived in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin.
Innovating on the foundation laid by Bitcoin, Ethereum aspired to
become the “Ultimate Smart Contract and decentralised Application
Platform”. The Ethereum whitepaper was published in 2014 and
development of the protocol began with an Initial Coin Offering
(ICO) that received US$18 million in crowdfunding. The Ethereum
network went live on the 30th of July 2015. Additional founders of
Ethereum included Gavin Wood (Polkadot), Charles Hoskinson
(Cardano), Anthony Di Iorio, Joseph Lubin and others.