Documenting Ethereum's Genesis

This is an ongoing project initiated by Bob Summerwill, documenting the early days of the Ethereum project and preserving the history and stories of the people who built the world's first smart contract platform.

All contributions towards this public record are very welcome, via issues, pull requests, or directly to Bob's X or LinkedIn.

Biographic information, photos, videos, links to contemporary articles and anything else which might be of interest to others researching Ethereum's history are all very welcome.

At the very least, Bob intends to produce a coffee table book of these photos and memories, but also to gather a 'High School Yearbook' style profile on everybody mentioned here and perhaps even individual interviews (180+ of them!), whether text or audio/video for everybody. That would not be a small undertaking, but could be a lot of fun.

Back Story

This is a continuation of a 2017-2018 project in which Bob Summerwill gathered information on the early contributors to the Ethereum project and of people who were involved with the Ethereum Foundation in its early years:

• Ethereum Foundation People - released 31st March 2018
• Ethereum Foundation Timeline - released 4th May 2018

Since the original information was first published, three books have been written on the history of Ethereum, which give a fuller story:

• The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo - released 14th July 2020
• Out of The Ether by Matthew Leising - released 29th September, 2020
• The Cryptopians by Laura Shin - released 22nd February 2022

This content was combined with the Early Days of Ethereum video series. The videos were initiated in late 2023 by Victor Wong, Kieren James-Lubin, and Jim Hormuzdiar—the co-founders of BlockApps. Bob joined as a guest in Episode 3 and became the host from Episode 4 onwards. A new episode is planned to be recorded each month, starting in September 2025.