Articles
A collection of articles documenting the early days of Ethereum, from the pre-Ethereum period through the foundation's early years.
"crypto valley"
In July 2013, Johann Gevers relocated his cryptofinance startup, Monetas (a Bitcoin payment system), to Zug, envisioning it as a "global hub for crypto technologies" modeled after Silicon Valley.
ethereum timeline
An attempt at building up some canonical history of the Ethereum Project and the Ethereum Foundation, documenting key events, videos, and milestones from 2013-2017.
ethereum launches 'cryptocurrency 2.0' network
Ethereum is no altcoin; it is an operating system for altcoin, say developers
ethereum: now going public
Seminal blog post just prior to the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami at which Ethereum was announced.
taylor gerring photos
A collection of photographs from Taylor Gerring documenting the early days of Ethereum, from the Miami Bitcoin Conference through the team's time in Switzerland.
ethereum switzerland gmbh ("EthSuisse")
Ethereum Switzerland GmbH was a for-profit "Ethereum Company" which was incorporated in Zug in February 2014
ethereum dev gmbh ("ETHDEV")
Limited-liability company founded in Berlin by Vitalik, Jeff and Gav.
daos, dacs, das and more: an incomplete terminology guide
One of the most popular topics in the digital consensus space is the concept of decentralized autonomous entities. However, one hidden problem is that no one even knows what all of these individual terms mean. This article attempts to provide coherent definitions. Smart Contracts A smart contract is the simplest...
"red wedding"
The "Red Wedding" was the meeting at Zug in June 2014 where Charles Hoskinson and Amir Chetrit were ejected from the project.
stiftung ethereum ("Ethereum Foundation")
Stiftung Ethereum is a non-profit organization which was incorporated in Zug in July 2014. It is more commonly known by its English name - the Ethereum Foundation.
launching the ether sale
First of all, I would like to thank the community, and especially those close to the project who have in many cases abandoned their jobs to dedicate their time to it, for their extreme patience regarding the launch of the ether sale. We have been promising that the sale would...
building the decentralized web 3.0
how ethereum could shard the web Given the state of our 25-year old web and all the problems inherited from legacy 1970's systems design, we should pause and take inventory of those components which are fundamentally broken. Intersecting this concern with security, privacy, and censorship resistance, it should be painfully...
gav's dev update i: where ethereum's at
Gavin Wood's first development update covering the Berlin hub setup, team introductions across Berlin, London, and Silicon Valley, and progress towards Ethereum 1.0
jeff's ethereum dev update i
Jeff Wilcke's first development update covering the Amsterdam hub setup, team introductions, and progress on Mist browser and ethereum.js
ethereum community and adoption update - week 1
Stephan Tual's first community update outlining Ethereum's education, meetup, and community initiatives, including the announcement of new team members.
devcon0
Invitation-only developer conference held in Berlin
proof of stake: how i learned to love weak subjectivity
Proof of stake continues to be controversial, particularly regarding the "nothing at stake" problem. However, the problems are solvable - at a moderate cost. This post explains what that cost is and how to minimize its impact. Economic Sets and Nothing at Stake Consensus algorithms use three main securely decentralized...
devcon-0 recap
A comprehensive recap of the first Ethereum developer conference held in Berlin from November 24-28, 2014, covering mission, processes, languages, ÐApps, architecture, security, and future blockchain theory
gav's ethereum dev update iv
Time for another update! So quite a bit has happened following ÐΞVcon-0, our internal developer's conference. The conference itself was a great time to get all the developers together and really get to know each other, dissipate a lot of information (back to back presentations for 5 days!) and chat...
ethereum dev: what are we doing?
OK so a minor update about what we are (and are not) doing here at Ethereum DEV. We are, first and foremost, developing a robust quasi-Turing-complete blockchain. This is known as Ethereum. Aside from having quasi-Turing-completeness, it delivers on a number of other important considerations, stemming from the fact we...
jeff's ethereum dev update ii
First of all, happy new year! What a year it has been. With a little luck we'll surpass last year with an even more awesome year. It's been too long since I've given an update on my side of things and that of the Go team and mostly due to...
the subjectivity / exploitability tradeoff
Many consensus architectures are robust against attackers up to a certain size, but if an attacker gets large enough, they become exploitable. Can we do better by making protocols not just stable but unexploitable? The Problem with Objectivity Objective protocols can be maintained using only the protocol definition and published...
gav's ethereum dev update v
Gavin Wood's fifth development update covering foundation restructuring, PoC-9 development sprint, proof-of-work algorithm improvements, and preparations for release
the ethereum launch process
I'm Vinay Gupta, the newly minted release coordinator for Ethereum. I've been working with the comms team on strategy, and have now come aboard to help smooth the release process (some of the content in this blog is out of date, please see this link for the most up to...
the ethereum development process
So I'm not sure if this kind of development methodology has ever been applied to such an extreme before so I figured I'd document it. In a nutshell, it's sort of like test-driven triplet-programming development. While speed-developing our alpha codebase, four of us sat around a table in the office...
ethereum foundation is hiring an executive director
Stiftung Ethereum, the Zug, Switzerland-based Ethereum Foundation –ethereum.org, is seeking to immediately fill the Executive Director position within the Foundation. The role involves defining and discharging the day-to-day business of the Foundation and leading the organization at the executive level. The successful candidate will have significant experience in corporate finance...
ethereum foundation open call re: board selection
With Ethereum getting close to its first official launch with Frontier, we have spent the last week of February at our holon in Switzerland discussing what the future of the Ethereum Foundation is going to look like. Since the start of the project, one of our primary dreams has been...
the end of the beginning…
Gavin Wood announces the Olympic testnet phase with incentivized testing before the Frontier release, offering prizes for mining, gas usage, and finding bugs
another ethereum dev update
Been a while, I know, but then these are rather busy days. I'm writing this from a Starbucks in Shanghai sitting behind the Great Firewall, able to peep out only occasionally. I've been in Asia with Marek for the last couple of weeks, mainly for meetups, workshops and technical meetings....
announcing the new foundation board and executive director
After an intensive recruitment period, the Ethereum Foundation has selected an Executive Director and named three members to the Board of Directors. This is a new organizational structure, which will allow us to focus on our next phase of development. The Ethereum Foundation is a not for profit ('Stiftung') organization...
ethereum launches
A few minutes ago, many of you generated and loaded the Ethereum Genesis block, marking the inception of Frontier, the first Live release of the Ethereum project. The Dev team joins me in thanking each and everyone of you for your support during the past year and half. It's incredible...
on public and private blockchains
Over the last year the concept of "private blockchains" has become very popular in the broader blockchain technology discussion. What are the practical differences between public and private blockchains? There are generally three categories of blockchain-like database applications: Public blockchains: A blockchain that anyone in the world can read, send...
devcon one postponed until further notice
Unfortunately we were not able to secure the venue for devcon one in London on the dates desired (October 5th-8th). As a consequence we are postponing the event until further notice. Please do not make travel plans at this time. Updates will be forthcoming on the devcon one website ....
a message from stephan tual
To the wonderful Ethereum Community, You often heard me say at conferences that Ethereum was not a company, a foundation, an implementation, or an individual. Ethereum is both an idea and an ideal, encompassing the first censorship-resistant network build specifically to enable those who need it the most to safely...
ethereum comms announcement
The foundation is currently in the phase of restructuring its communications activities. Several members of our current communications team in London are soon leaving or reducing their involvement in the Foundation in order to pursue for-profit ventures on top of the Ethereum ecosystem; we wish them the best of luck....
devcon is back!
DevCon 1 will be happening in London on November 9-13, a little over one hundred days since the Ethereum network launched. Over the last months, we've seen the network grow from a few hundred nodes starting on that one exciting and special night to a very substantial, globally deployed stable...
the evolution of ethereum
Many of you know that the Ethereum platform grew out of the realization that blockchains can go far beyond currency, together with a frustration with the limitations of previous projects. The core idea was simple: a blockchain with a built-in Turing-complete programming language, allowing users to build any kind of...
nick szabo confirmed as keynote speaker of ethereum's devcon1
London, United Kingdom, October 22nd - The Ethereum Foundation is pleased to announce the Keynote Speaker of Ethereum's annual conference DΞVCON1, Nick Szabo. Nick's keynote will focus on the history of the blockchain, smart contracts and assets on the blockchain. Nick is a computer scientist, legal scholar and cryptographer known...
microsoft to sponsor ethereum's devcon1
London, United Kingdom, October 28th - Ethereum is happy to announce that Microsoft will sponsor and attend DΞVCON1, the premier Ethereum developer conference. Marley Gray, Director of Technology Strategy US Financial Services at Microsoft said, "Microsoft is excited to sponsor and attend Ethereum's DevCon1. We find the Ethereum blockchain incredibly...
ethereum foundation internal update
Now that Ethereum has launched and is rapidly nearing its Homestead phase, over the last few months we at the Ethereum Foundation have finally had the chance to have some breathing room and plan our strategies with a more long-term view. From a development perspective, we have now started in...
the last blog post
Gavin Wood's farewell blog post announcing his departure from the Ethereum Foundation to pursue new ventures, reflecting on his journey and the future ahead
cut and try: building a dream
Last month marked the 2 year anniversary of Ethereum's public announcement at The North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami, Florida, USA. Amid much rumour and excitement, a sizeable crowd mobbed the young Vitalik Buterin after his on-stage announcement, questioning the merit and his desire to build such a system. It...
dream job – working for ethereum foundation
Bob Summerwill announces he will be starting as a part-time contractor for the Ethereum Foundation, working on the Ethereum C++ client after months of obsessive work via doublethink.co
homestead release
Update: We've released version 1.3.5 including networking hotfix for homestead 1.3.4. Development of Ethereum started in December 2013 when two developers and a college dropout researcher decided to put their heads together and develop this amazing piece of technology. We were later joined by many like-minded individuals. Our first Proof...
serenity poc2
After an additional two months of work after the release of the first python proof of concept release of Serenity, I am pleased to announce that Serenity PoC2 is now available. Although the release continues to be far from a testnet-ready client, much less a production-ready one, PoC2 brings with...
a brief history of digix (more pictures than words)
A photographic timeline of Digix's journey from December 2014 to March 2016, documenting the company's inception in Singapore, collaboration with the Ethereum Foundation, and development of their Proof of Asset Protocol
on settlement finality
Special thanks to Tim Swanson for reviewing, and for further discussions on the arguments in his original paper on settlement finality. Recently one of the major disputes in ongoing debate between public blockchain and permissioned blockchain proponents is the issue of settlement finality. Decentralized systems may provide finality, or they...
critical update re: dao vulnerability
An attack has been found and exploited in the DAO, and the attacker is currently in the process of draining the ether contained in the DAO into a child DAO. The attack is a recursive calling vulnerability, where an attacker called the "split" function, and then calls the split function...
to fork or not to fork
The DAO, though not a product developed by the Ethereum Foundation, has been a hot topic as of late, both internally in the organisation as well as within our community. The Hard Fork is a delicate topic and the way we see it, no decision is the right one. As...
hard fork completed
We would like to congratulate the Ethereum community on a successfully completed hard fork. Block 1920000 contained the execution of an irregular state change which transferred ~12 million ETH from the "Dark DAO" and "Whitehat DAO" contracts into the WithdrawDAO recovery contract. The fork itself took place smoothly, with roughly...
devcon2
The second public Ethereum developer conference held in Shanghai, China
farewell and welcome
It is with sadness that we announce that Ming Chan, who has served as Executive Director at the Ethereum Foundation for nearly three years, is leaving the Foundation. Since her arrival in 2015, she has played a critical role in the development and success of the Foundation. Ming Chan's Accomplishments...
to infinity and beyond!
Dear Ethereum community (and wonderful Etherheads!), Today, January 31, 2018, is my last day as Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation. Reflecting on the Journey I'm pleased to have been able to guide the Foundation as ED with my fellow directors, team leads, and outstanding group of team members, each...
the cryptopians
The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze. The story of the idealists, technologists, and opportunists fighting to bring cryptocurrency to the masses.