History of Ethereum in Timeline

Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform notable for its smart contract capabilities and its native cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH). As a cryptocurrency, Ether ranks second in market capitalization behind Bitcoin. The Ethereum blockchain enables developers to build and deploy decentralized applications (dApps).

December 2013: Ethereum Initial Founders Defined

In December 2013, Anthony Di Iorio identified the initial five founders of Ethereum as Vitalik Buterin, himself, Charles Hoskinson, Mihai Alisie, and Amir Chetrit.

2013: Ethereum Conceived

In 2013, Vitalik Buterin conceived the idea of Ethereum, which included other founders Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, and Joseph Lubin.

2013: Ethereum Initially Described in White Paper

In late 2013, Ethereum was initially described in a white paper by Vitalik Buterin, a programmer and co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine, outlining a way to build decentralized applications.

January 2014: Ethereum Announced at North American Bitcoin Conference

In January 2014, Ethereum was announced at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami. Founders gathered to develop the concept, with Buterin later deciding to proceed as a non-profit in Zug, Switzerland.

August 2014: Ethereum Crowd Sale

From July to August 2014, development of Ethereum was funded by an online public crowd sale, where participants bought the Ethereum value token (ether) with bitcoin.

2014: Ethereum Development Begins

In 2014, development work began on Ethereum and was crowdfunded.

2014: Additional Founders Added to Ethereum

In early 2014, Joseph Lubin, Gavin Wood, and Jeffrey Wilcke were added as founders of Ethereum.

2014: Ethereum Prototypes Developed

Over 18 months in 2014 and 2015, the Ethereum Foundation developed several codenamed prototypes of Ethereum as part of their proof-of-concept series.

July 2015: Ethereum Network Goes Live

In July 2015, the Ethereum network officially went live, marking a significant milestone in the platform's development.

July 2015: Ethereum Platform Officially Launched

On July 30, 2015, "Frontier" marked the official launch of the Ethereum platform, and Ethereum created its "genesis block".

October 2015: Etheria Deployed to Network

In October 2015, the first NFT project, Etheria, a 3D map of tradable and customizable hexagonal tiles, was deployed to the network.

November 2015: ERC-20 Token Standard Proposed

In November 2015, Fabian Vogelsteller proposed the ERC-20 Token Standard (Ethereum Request-for-Comments #20), which allows for fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

January 2016: Ethereum Transaction Throughput

In January 2016, Ethereum averaged about 25 transactions per second, and this rate did not change after the move to proof-of-stake.

June 2016: The DAO Exploited

In June 2016, The DAO was exploited, resulting in US$50 million of DAO tokens being stolen by an unknown hacker. This event sparked debate about a hard fork.

March 2017: Enterprise Ethereum Alliance Creation

In March 2017, various blockchain startups, research groups, and Fortune 500 companies announced the creation of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) with 30 founding members.

May 2017: EEA Membership Growth

By May 2017, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) had grown to 116 enterprise members, including ConsenSys, CME Group, Cornell University's research group, Toyota Research Institute, Samsung SDS, Microsoft, Intel, J. P. Morgan, Cooley LLP, Merck KGaA, DTCC, Deloitte, Accenture, Banco Santander, BNY Mellon, ING, and National Bank of Canada.

July 2017: EEA Membership Expansion

By July 2017, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) had grown to over 150 members, including MasterCard, Cisco Systems, Sberbank, and Scotiabank.

2017: CryptoKitties Launched

In 2017, CryptoKitties, a blockchain game featuring digital cat artwork as NFTs, was launched on the Ethereum network, gaining mainstream media attention and highlighting scalability concerns.

2017: Network Congestion Problems

In 2017, the Ethereum network faced congestion problems, notably in relation to CryptoKitties.

January 2018: Ether as Second-Largest Cryptocurrency

By January 2018, ether was the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, behind bitcoin.

January 2018: ERC-721 NFT Standard Published

In January 2018, the ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard was published, introducing the first official NFT standard on Ethereum, allowing Ethereum to become central to a multi-billion dollar digital collectibles market.

2019: Virgil Griffith Arrested

In 2019, Ethereum Foundation employee Virgil Griffith was arrested by the US government for presenting at a blockchain conference in North Korea.

2019: CFTC Chairman Declares ETH a Commodity

In 2019, former CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert stated that "ETH is a commodity", asserting the CFTC's regulatory authority over Ethereum.

March 2021: Visa Settles Stablecoin Transactions Using Ethereum

In March 2021, Visa Inc. announced that it began settling stablecoin transactions using Ethereum.

April 2021: Investment in ConsenSys

In April 2021, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, and MasterCard announced that they were investing US$65 million into ConsenSys, a software development firm that builds Ethereum-related infrastructure.

April 2021: Berlin Network Upgrade Implemented

The "Berlin" network upgrade was implemented on April 14, 2021.

August 2021: Blockchain Experiences Brief Fork

On 27 August 2021, the Ethereum blockchain experienced a brief fork that was the result of clients running different incompatible software versions.

2021: Ether Maintained Position as Second-Largest Cryptocurrency

As of 2021, ether maintained its relative position as the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization.

2021: Virgil Griffith Pleads Guilty

In 2021, Virgil Griffith would later plead guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

September 2022: Ethereum Merged to the Beacon Chain

On September 15, 2022 at block 15537393, the Paris event merged Ethereum to the Beacon chain as part of "The Merge".

September 2022: Ethereum Transitions to Proof-of-Stake

On September 15, 2022, Ethereum transitioned its consensus mechanism from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) in an update known as "The Merge," which cut the blockchain's energy usage by over 99%.

2022: Amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)

In 2022, Amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) introduced "controllable electronic records" (CERs) as a new category of personal property that includes digital assets like Ether. Under UCC Article 12, ETH is classified as a CER, which provides a comprehensive framework for its commercial circulation.

March 2024: Dencun Upgrades Go Live

On March 13, 2024, the "Dencun" upgrades went live, including EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding) which introduced "blobs" for general-purpose data-availability.

2024: EEA Leadership Changes

In 2024, Paul Brody, EEA board member for EY, was announced as the new chairperson, and Karen Scarbrough, board member for Microsoft, as the new executive director. Vanessa Grellet from Arche Capital also joined as a new board member.

May 2025: Prague-Electra Update Launched

On May 7, 2025, the Prague-Electra ("Pectra") update was launched. It brought various updates, including EIP-7251, which increases the staking amount per validator from exactly 32 ETH to anywhere between 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, and EIP-7702, which allows for the EOA addresses to use functionality from a smart contract.

December 2025: Ethereum L1 Theoretical Throughput

In December 2025, the maximum theoretical throughput for Ethereum L1 is 238 TPS, given its current 60M gas limit, 12s blocks, and 21k gas cost for ETH transfers.