Ethereum was first described by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin in a 2013 blog post entitled Ethereum: The Ultimate Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform. The goal was to create a 'Turing complete' blockchain. This can be described as a decentralized computer capable of running any type of application, rather than just a decentralized ledger capable of managing programmable money (like Bitcoin).
The official list of founders include Vitalik Buterin, Ansthony Di lorio, Charles Hoskinson, Mihai Alisie, Amir Chetrit, Joseph Lubin, Gavin Wood, and Jeffrey Wilcke, but several of the founders parted ways early on in the project. Notably, Charles Hoskinson went on to found a competing smart contract platform called Cardano. Formal development of the first Ethereum software client began in early 2014 through EthSuisse, a company based in Zug, Switzerland. Ethereum mainet was launched in July, 2015, one year after the crowdsale that funded its development.
Read more: Learn how ETH was initially distributed and why token distribution is important.
