Ethereum at 10 and what’s next

Ten years ago, Ethereum was little more than an idea on Reddit. Today, it stands as one of the most significant technological innovations in modern finance.

Co-founded by Vitalik Buterin in 2013, Ethereum began with a vision to move beyond Bitcoin’s perceived limitations.

Ethereum’s early days

That vision sparked interest from fellow technologists, including Gavin Wood, who would go on to write the Ethereum Yellow Paper, a key technical document that helped legitimize the project.

In mid-2014, long before Ethereum became a household name in crypto, the Ethereum Foundation launched a public presale. ETH was sold at an initial fixed exchange rate of 2,000 ETH per BTC, gradually decreasing over 42 days to 1,337 ETH per BTC.

The sale raised over 31,000 BTC, valued at roughly $18.3 million at the time, and distributed 60 million ETH.

Those funds laid the foundation for Ethereum’s network development and community growth.

Since then, Ethereum has grown into the second-largest blockchain by market capitalization. It has powered countless innovations, from DeFi and NFTs to Layer-2 scaling and zero-knowledge proofs.

The network has also undergone major milestones, including the DAO crisis, the hard fork that followed, and The Merge, which transitioned Ethereum from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.

Joseph Lubin, Consensys CEO and Ethereum co-founder, highlighted the protocol’s resilience during these 10 years, saying:

“Ethereum has demonstrated non-stop uptime, proving itself as the definition of antifragile. It has continually evolved to serve as a reliable trust layer for our fast-growing digital world.”

Lubin also noted that Ethereum’s appeal now extends far beyond the crypto-native world. Financial giants like BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Visa have begun building on the network, attracted by its programmability and security.

He noted:

“Ethereum offers a borderless, transparent, and decentralized financial architecture, opening up entirely new avenues of growth and innovation and enabling far greater economic and political agency for people and communities.”

What is next for Ethereum?

Ethereum Foundation Co-Executive Director Tomasz Stańczak believes the network is poised to play a central role in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and decentralized infrastructure.

According to him, Ethereum aims to be the backbone of a more secure, open, and programmable digital world over the coming decade.

He said:

“Ethereum is designed for this future. Privacy. Censorship resistance. Security. Open source at the root. These are not features, they’re values. That’s why people come to Ethereum to build their dreams”

Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang echoed this vision, stating that Ethereum will become a “global computer” seamlessly embedded in daily life.

However, Wang noted that realizing this vision will require a balance between innovation and stability, scalability and accessibility, privacy and affordability. The executive said:

“As we grow, the ecosystem must maintain its commitment to where it started: decentralized & robust network, permissionless applications, & global open-source contribution. Winning will not rely on any single entity. Resilience is created by the growth of the whole community.”

Meanwhile, Lubin also stated that:

“Beyond finance, Ethereum will serve as critical infrastructure for the next wave of innovation across networks of decentralized social graphs, stablecoins, decentralized identity systems, decentralized physical infrastructure, data marketplaces and autonomous AI agents.”