2025-08-17
Ethereum is an important milestone in the blockchain field. It not only promotes the popularity of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps), but also lays the foundation for the diversified development of blockchain technology. From concept proposal to technological evolution, Ethereum has undergone a rapid and far-reaching development process.
The concept of Ethereum was first proposed by Vitalik Buterin in 2013. At that time, Buterin believed that the functionality of Bitcoin was too limited to support more complex application scenarios. In order to achieve the programmability of the blockchain, he wrote the Ethereum white paper, outlining the vision of a platform that supports smart contracts and decentralized applications. In 2014, through crowd funding, the Ethereum project received about 31,000 bitcoins (worth $18 million at the time), providing sufficient resources for its development.
With the growth of users and applications, the Ethereum network is facing transaction congestion and high transaction fees. In order to solve these bottlenecks, in 2018, the Ethereum team proposed an upgrade plan for Ethereum 2.0. The plan includes transitioning from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS) and introducing sharding technology to improve network scalability. In 2022, "The Merge" was completed, marking the official transition of Ethereum to the PoS mechanism and laying the foundation for its future development.
Ethereum has developed from an innovative blockchain platform to an ecosystem that supports applications in multiple fields such as smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Its brief history reflects the process of blockchain technology from exploration to maturity, and also demonstrates the important role of Ethereum in promoting technological progress and application landing.
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