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July 30, 2015: Genesis in a Berlin Office
At block 1,028,201, in a modest Berlin workspace, the first “world computer” quietly booted up. Ten years on, Ethereum has evolved from fringe experiment into the backbone of thousands of applications, tens of thousands of developers, and the entire narrative of programmable money.
To honor the journey, the Ethereum Foundation is running The Torch, a travelling NFT that will ultimately be burned—symbolically closing the first decade and handing the flame to the next.
Below, PANews distills the ten pivotal moments that shaped Ethereum from 2013 to today.
1. 2013–2014: White Paper & ICO
November 2013 – Nineteen-year-old Vitalik Buterin publishes the first Ethereum white-paper draft, emailing it as “Introduction to Ethereum: A Generalised Smart-Contract / DAO Platform.”
January 2014 – Vitalik presents Ethereum at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami. Gavin Wood follows with the Yellow Paper, the canonical spec for the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
22 July 2014 – The 42-day ICO raises 31 k BTC (~ $18 M), distributing 72 M ETH at an average price of $0.30.
2. 2015: Mainnet Genesis
The Frontier phase goes live on 30 July 2015. Miners begin securing the network; the first block reward is 5 ETH. The four-stage roadmap is revealed:
Frontier
Homestead
Metropolis
Serenity (Proof-of-Stake)
3. 2016: The DAO Hack & Hard Fork
The DAO raises 11.5 M ETH (~ $149 M) in 28 days. On 17 June, an exploit siphons off 3.64 M ETH. After fiery debate, the community hard-forks at block 1,920,000, creating Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC).
4. 2017: ICO Mania & Global Crackdown
Ethereum powers the ICO boom—EOS, Tezos, Filecoin and dozens more raise billions. ETH rockets from ~ $8 to over $700. Regulators respond:
4 September 2017 – China outlaws ICOs.
SEC labels many tokens as securities.
Bubble pops, but Ethereum’s status as the default smart-contract platform is cemented.
5. 2020: Beacon Chain & DeFi Take-off
1 December 2020 – The Beacon Chain launches, Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0.
A month earlier, Compound introduces liquidity mining; TVL explodes from <$1 B to >$200 B by end-2021.
DeFi staples—Uniswap, Aave, Curve, Synthetix—turn Ethereum into Wall Street 3.0.
6. 2021: NFTs Go Mainstream
CryptoPunks, BAYC, Beeple’s $69 M Christie’s sale, OpenSea’s billion-dollar months—NFT culture detonates. Brands from Adidas to Pepsi drop collections; Axie Infinity pioneers Play-to-Earn. Ethereum becomes the cultural ledger for the internet.
7. 2022: The Merge
15 September 2022 – Proof-of-Work is sunset. The Merge unites Mainnet with Beacon Chain. Energy use drops > 99 %. Issuance falls ~ 90 %. Miners migrate; validators take over.
8. 2024: Spot ETH ETF Approval
23 July 2024 – SEC green-lights spot ETFs from Grayscale, Bitwise, BlackRock, VanEck, Ark and others.
Assets under management top $20.66 B (~ 4.64 % of ETH supply) within months. Staking features are still pending in later ETF filings.
9. 2024: Dencun Upgrade
13 March 2024 – EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding) ships. “Blob” data cuts L2 fees by 90 % and paves the road to full Danksharding. Ethereum’s scalability thesis finally feels real.
10. 2025: The Strategic ETH Treasury Race
Corporate treasuries now mirror MicroStrategy’s bitcoin playbook.
2.32 M ETH (~ $8.98 B) sits in disclosed strategic reserves across 63 entities (≈ 1.92 % of circulating supply).
BitMine (led by Tom Lee, backed by Ark) holds 566.8 k ETH (~ $2.2 B).
SharpLink Gaming (ex-BlackRock exec Joseph Chalom) holds 360 k ETH (~ $1.4 B).
The Next Decade Begins
From a white paper emailed by a teenager in 2013 to a $400 B settlement layer underpinning finance, art, games, and identity—Ethereum’s first ten years rewrote the rules.
The torch is now passed. The experiment continues.
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