10 Years of Blocks – Congratulations Ethereum

Paul Otto

In 2013, Vitalik Buterin, 19, posted on the Bitcointalk forum announcing a new type of blockchain. An expressive programming language would allow smart contracts, something Bitcoin can’t do. The project would be called Ethereum.

Cheap ETH at the Presale

In 2014, Ethereum held a public pre-sale of ETH tokens. Anyone could buy a not-yet-existing token at a price of 2000 ETH for 1 BTC. The price of Bitcoin was around $600 at the time. The price of 2000 ETH at the time of writing is about $7,600,000. An investor who bought ETH at the pre-sale for $600 worth of Bitcoin and held onto their ETH until today might have just made the best investment of the decade, turning hundreds into millions.

On July 30, 2015, Ethereum’s first block appeared, marking the genesis of the new blockchain. In 2016, a major incident shook the new project. A decentralized fund called The DAO raised an astounding $150 million worth of ETH. This DAO saw its funds drained in a hack. Ethereum’s leadership and community decided to roll back the chain – something a blockchain, in the view of many, should never do. This resulted in two chains – an original Ethereum Classic (ETC) and an adjusted Ethereum (still ETH). Interestingly, buyers of the pre-sale now hold 2000 ETH and 2000 ETC tokens per Bitcoin invested.

Dominant Ethereum

Skipping ahead over ICOs and Crypto-Kitties, in 2022, Ethereum underwent a massive upgrade: switching from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. At the time, we reduced our ETH position in the fund as this change was highly complex. However, Ethereum switched consensus without hiccups – a feat often described as changing the engines on an airplane mid-flight.

Today, Ethereum with over 100 connected layer-2 solutions like Base (from Coinbase), Soneium (Sony) and OP (Optimism), is the dominant blockchain platform, holding over $130 billion in assets managed by smart contracts (combined TVL on L1 and L2s, L2 estimate by L2beat).

Ethereum’s leadership and developer culture is second to none. With more assets coming on-chain as tokens – first and foremost dollar tokens, so-called stablecoins – smart contract platforms continue to grow. Most of the growth is absorbed by Ethereum. This is why we currently hold 26% of the fund in ETH. Ethereum price shot up 51.6% in July, which fund investors benefit from greatly. Enjoy our July 2025 fund report.

We look forward to the next 10 years of Ethereum.