Ethereum has drawn increased attention in recent months as brokerages lobby the SEC to make ETH spot ETFs available to retail investors.
The SEC doesn’t expect to make a final decision until June 11, let’s take some time to review ETH, who founded it, and who controls it now:
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum is the open-source #blockchain network that popularized #decentralized applications (dApps), a new generation of apps that do not rely on centralized authorities like #banks or servers to function. Essential to Ethereum’s innovation are smart contracts, code-bound agreements that execute automatically according to predetermined conditions. Smart contracts play a large role in many of the products and services that make up Ethereum’s #Web3 ecosystem, replacing roles traditionally played by trusted, centralized parties in overseeing transactions.
While the #Ethereum network does leverage its native ether (ETH) currency throughout its network and ecosystem, Ethereum technology itself is better conceptualized as a globally distributed computational environment rather than a cryptocurrency alone. Ethereum-based phenomena like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (#NFTs) have demonstrated the potential of Web3 throughout a spectrum of sectors and use cases. Upon the project’s launch in #2014, its core tech (including smart contracts and ERC tokens) presented a novel and ambitious concept. Implementing this technology required the input of many different people and groups.
**Who founded ETH?
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Ethereum was originally proposed by Vitalik Buterin, a Russian-Canadian programmer who remains a de facto figurehead for Ethereum. Inspired by #Bitcoin, Buterin released a whitepaper in 2013 describing an alternative blockchain network that would go beyond Bitcoin’s proposed financial use cases to allow developers to create their own decentralized applications (dApps) using a new programming language. The open-ended aspirations enshrined in the Ethereum founder’s #whitepaper created a huge buzz among early crypto proponents, and soon after publication several talented developers reached out to Buterin to help bring his vision to life.
