Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum Foundation. Photo / Getty Images
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum Foundation. Photo / Getty Images
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is the world's youngest known crypto billionaire and recently made headlines for his US$1 billion donation to the India Covid Relief Fund.
He then burned 410 trillion of one of the latest cryptocurrencies to hit the market – Shiba Inu coins.
So who is the 27-year-old behind Ethereum?
He has been in the crypto game since he was 18
Born near Moscow, Buterin moved to Canada when he was 6. He learned about Bitcoin when he was 17 from his father, who had a small software start-up, although he initially dismissed the concept, thinking it was doomed to fail.
Then, the Russian-Canadian programmer became curious about the decentralised payment system offered by cryptocurrency.
He wanted to buy into Bitcoin but didn't have the money so ended up writing blog posts in exchange for payment in crypto.
Buterin is offhand when asked about his move into crypto and doesn't court media attention, coming across as shy. He claims he was looking for his next obsession after quitting playing World of Warcraft. He co-founded Bitcoin Magazine when he was only 18.
Initially he focused on power inequality
Blaming society's sins on too much government power, he thought cryptocurrency could be a good way to correct that imbalance, he admitted.
"I saw everything to do with either government regulation or corporate control as just being plain evil. And I assumed that people in those institutions were kind of like Mr Burns [from the Simpson's], sitting behind their desks saying, 'Excellent. How can I screw a thousand people over this time'," he told Wired in 2016.
While it isn't so black and white for him any more, he does want to "empower the little guy". "And personally I say screw the big guy. They have enough money already," he added.
He dropped out of university to create ethereum
First up he wrote a white paper describing his idea.
Then when he first described his concept at a Bitcoin conference, he received a standing ovation from the audience.
Ethereum's coin, ether, was first launched in 2015 when Buterin was aged just 21.
At the time, it was hailed as something that could stamp out corruption based on the systems it created.
Buterin has still managed to score a university qualification too. He was granted a honorary doctoral degree from the University of Basel in Switzerland for his innovative work in the blockchain space and his contribution to the ecosystem.
Bitcoin was too basic
Part of the motivation to create ethereum was that Buterin thought Bitcoin offered limited functionality, describing it as the difference between a simple calculator and a smartphone. The calculator does one thing well but people want more, he said.
"If you have a smartphone then on the smartphone you have a plot key calculator as an app. You have playing music as an app. You have a web browser as an app and pretty much everything else," he told Business Insider.
Part of the motivation to create ethereum was Vitalik Buterin thought bitcoin offered limited functionality. Photo / AP
He took this idea to ethereum to increase "the power of the system by making it more general purpose" and applying it to blockchains, the technology behind many cryptocurrencies.
There's some bizarre rumours floating around about him
Some are complimentary, while some are just downright weird. Some claim he once ate a whole lemon without removing the rind, that he's an android powered by the Ethereum network and that he likes to wear mismatched Hello Kitty socks, reported Wired back in 2016.
There's also ones like all he owns could fit in one suitcase, he learned to speak Mandarin fluently in a couple of months and he has to ability to add three-digit numbers in his head twice as fast as the average person.
In the third grade he was placed in a class for the gifted
Buterin said he experienced a lot of social exclusion as a result.
"I remember knowing, for a while, for a long time, that I was kind of abnormal in some sense," he told Wired. "When I was in grade five or six, I just remember quite a lot of people were always talking about me like I was some kind of math genius. And there were just so many moments when I realised, like okay, why can't I just be like some normal person and go have a 75 per cent average like everyone else."
His not a prolific tweeter unlike another billionaire
Unlike Elon Musk, he isn't on Twitter much despite having 1.7 million followers.
Overall, ether prices have more than quadrupled this year, soaring 375 per cent. Buterin holds about 333,500 ether in his public wallet and despite price fluctuations he's a billionaire.
Part of ethereum's surge can be credited to the fact that it is the cryptocurrency of choice for purchasing non-fungible tokens or NFTs — digital artwork, memes and other collectibles.
Ethereum is going more environmentally friendly
After Musk pulled the plug on Bitcoin being accepted by Tesla because of climate change concerns, it's been announced that Ethereum is just months after from slashing its carbon emissions.
The existing Ethereum network uses about 5.13 gigawatts of power – around the consumption of Peru – but it estimates this will drop to 2.62 megawatts after it switches the way it works.
He's got a philanthropic attitude
Helping India through the Covid-19 crisis isn't his first charitable act.
In 2017, he donated almost US$770,000 to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, which works to ensure artificial intelligence technologies have a positive impact on humanity.
Then in 2018, he donated US$2.4 million to the Sense Research Foundation, which develops solutions for health issues associated with ageing and also gave US$1 million to charity for Ugandan Refugees.
