Ever since the advent of the personal computer, every technological trend and breakthrough propels the media to start searching for the young savant who will be able to identify and tap into the potential of the code that brought about the technology. This is how the world came to know of giants like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and, more recently, Mark Zuckerberg. As far as crypto goes, the foremost candidate for this prestigious and illustrious honor is the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin.
Introducing, Vitalik Buterin:
Buterin was born in Moscow. However, since his parents moved to Canada when he was just six years old, that is where Buterin has spent the chunk of his childhood and teenage. According to a 2016 Wired magazine interview, Buterin first came across the crypto concept back in 2011, at the age of seventeen. His father worked in the programming sector, and introduced Buterin to the concept of digital currencies, and, in particular, Bitcoin.
Then, owing to a change in World of Warcraft, one of Buterin’s favorite computer games, he came to realize the potential problems associated with centralized control. When expanded to a size as large as the global financial system, these problems expanded as well. For this reason, Buterin decided to focus on taking on – and taking down – the centralization that was ripe throughout the monetary system.
Some people claim that, as a child, Buterin was unnaturally capable at programming and math. Interestingly, though, it was not programming that fetched Buterin the spotlight but rather his written word.
As per the same Wired interview we mentioned earlier, Buterin observed that Bitcoin was growing, and wanted to buy the currency in order to benefit from the increase in price. However, since he was just a teenager, he did not have much money to invest. As a workaround, he managed to find someone who would pay him against the blog posts and articles that Buterin wrote. His published work caught the eye of the Romanian bitcoin investor named Mihai Alisie.
Alisie was impressed with Buterin’s knowledge and acumen, and reached out to him with a larger writing project. Ultimately, the two founded the Bitcoin Magazine during the year 2011, with Buterin working as the lead writer. In short, within a span of 12 months, Buterin was acquainted with cryptocurrencies, rejected them, redeveloped an interest in them, created a small Bitcoin stake, and then became a co-founder for a magazine which, to this day, is considered one of the most reliable and informative resources for cryptocurrency enthusiasts throughout the world. This is the kind of story that makes you think back to what you were doing when you were seventeen – the chances are, whatever you were doing, it was not anything compared to what Buterin did.
Before we wrap up, here is an interesting fact about Buterin. In 2013, owing to the massive success of the magazine, Buterin decided to drop out of school (he was attending the University of Waterloo at the time). Since he was dedicating almost his entire week to Bitcoin writing, he felt that it did not make a lot of sense for him to continue attending college. Dropping out allowed him to explore the world and learn about how crypto startups initiated and progressed.
Final Word:
Vitalik Buterin is one of the pioneers of the crypto world that now seems to have the attention of the entire world. To know more about the major players in the crypto space or to start your own journey towards crypto trading and investing, please feel free to visit Stock Profit .