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Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin
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Vitalik Buterin in 2016
Native name Виталий Дмитриевич Бутерин
Born (1994-01-31) January 31, 1994 (age 30)
Kolomna, Russia
Nationality Russian-Canadian
Fields Digital contracts, Digital currencies, Game Theory
Alma mater University of Waterloo
(Dropped Out)
Known for Ethereum, Bitcoin Magazine
Notable awards Thiel Fellowship
Website
about.me/vitalik_buterin

Vitalik Buterin (Russian: Виталий Дмитриевич Бутерин) is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as a co-founder of Ethereum and as a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.[1][2][3]

Contents

Personal life

Buterin was born in Kolomna, Moscow Oblast, Russia to Dmitry Buterin, a computer scientist and Maia Buterin, a business analyst.[citation needed] He lived in the area until the age of six when his parents immigrated to Canada in search of better employment opportunities. While in grade three of elementary school in Canada, Buterin was placed into a class for gifted children and started to understand that he was drawn to math, programming, and economics. He also had the ability to add three digit numbers in his head at twice the speed of his peers.[4]. Buterin attended the Abelard School, a private high school in Toronto, for four years[5], which he said "proved to be among the most interesting and productive years of my life; the closer connection between students and teachers [and] the level of depth at which the material was taught, made me want to learn, and to focus on learning as my primary goal"[6]. Buterin has written that although he was "never particularly inspired by the traditional education system"[7], when subjects were presented with "dedication and focus on intellectual inquiry", he "noticed my attitude and my results almost immediately and drastically change. Education is ultimately much more than simply memorizing individual facts, or even learning individual concepts. [What] matters most: learning how to think, learning how to reason and learning how to learn."[8]

Buterin learned about Bitcoin from his father at 19.[9] In 2012, he obtained a Bronze Medal in the International Olympiad in Informatics.[10] In 2013 he visited developers in other countries who shared his enthusiasm for code. He returned to Toronto later that year and published a white paper proposing Ethereum.[11] He attended the University of Waterloo but dropped out in 2014, when he received the Thiel Fellowship in the amount of $100,000,[12] and went to work on Ethereum full-time.[12].

Endeavors

Beginnings at Bitcoin Magazine

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Main article: Bitcoin Magazine

Buterin met a person on a bitcoin chat forum trying to start a bitcoin blog. The owner offered five bitcoin (about $3.50) to anyone who would write an article for him. Buterin wrote for the site until its website shut down soon thereafter due to Bitcoin's lack of mainstream attention.[13]

In September 2011, another person reached out to Buterin about a new publication called Bitcoin Magazine, a position which Buterin would accept as the first co-founder, and contribute as a leading writer.

In addition Buterin wrote about bitcoin-related topics for other publications, including Bitcoin Weekly.[1][14] Bitcoin Magazine in 2012 later began publishing a print edition and has been referred to as the first serious publication dedicated to cryptocurrencies.[15] Bitcoin Magazine was then purchased by BTC Media, where Buterin continued to write until mid-2014.

In addition, he held a position on the editorial board of Ledger, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes full-length original research articles on the subjects of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.[16]

Ethereum

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Main article: Ethereum

He is a co-creator and inventor of Ethereum, described as a “decentralised mining network and software development platform rolled into one” that facilitates the creation of new cryptocurrencies and programs that share a single blockchain (a cryptographic transaction ledger).[17][18][19]

Ethereum was first described in Buterin's white paper, in late 2013. Buterin argued that bitcoin needed a scripting language for application development. But when he failed to gain agreement, he proposed development of a new platform with a more general scripting language.[20]. About the Ethereum Project, Buterin has said: "I am truly grateful to have the opportunity to work in such an interesting and interdisciplinary area of industry, where I have the chance to interact with cryptographers, mathematicians and economists prominent in their fields, to help build software and tools that already affect tens of thousands of people around the world, and to work on advanced problems in computer science, economics and philosophy every week."[21]

Open source software

Vitalik has contributed as a developer to other open source software projects.[1] Some early examples are: Kryptokit, pybitcointools, multisig.info, and btckeysplit.[22] He also contributed to DarkWallet[23] by Cody Wilson, Bitcoin Python libraries,[24] and the cryptocurrency marketplace site Egora.[2]

Death hoax

On June 25, 2017, Buterin was the subject of a death hoax that caused the price of Ethereum to crash.[25]

Controversies

On November 2017, Buterin used his official Twitter account to defend the alleged "social benefits" of legalizing the possession of child pornography.[26]

Awards and recognition

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ The 2014 World Technology Award Winner
  29. ↑ 40 under 40: Vitalik Buterin, 22, Fortune, September 2016.

External links

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Vitalik_Buterin&oldid=725392407"
Last edited on 15 November 2017, at 16:59