Ethereum timeline
2011
Late winter | Vitalik starts learning about Bitcoin, writing for Bitcoin Weekly |
June 1 | Gawker article, “The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug Imaginable,” is published |
Bitcoin price shoots up from less than $9 to almost $32 within a week | |
August | Vitalik becomes a writer for Bitcoin Magazine |
2012
May | Bitcoin Magazine publishes its inaugural issue |
Vitalik graduates from high school | |
September | Vitalik begins at University of Waterloo |
2013
May | Vitalik decides to take time off from school |
August | Vitalik decides to extend his break from school |
September | Vitalik spends a week in a squat with Amir Taaki in Milan |
September | Vitalik spends four to six weeks in Israel; has revelation about “layer 2” functionalities on Bitcoin |
Early October | Bitcoin price in low $100s |
Early November | Bitcoin price in the low $200s |
November 4–8 | Vitalik in Los Angeles |
November 8–December 10 | Vitalik in San Francisco |
Mid-November | Bitcoin price in the $400s, breaks through $800 |
Vitalik takes walk in the Presidio, where he has a technical breakthrough on Ethereum’s structure | |
November 27 | Vitalik sends Ethereum white paper to friends |
Bitcoin price crosses $1,000 for the first time | |
December 10–11 | Vitalik and Anthony Di Iorio attend the Inside Bitcoins conference |
December 19 | Gavin Wood writes Vitalik |
December 25 | Jeff Wilcke and Gavin start writing implementations of the Ethereum white paper |
2014
January 1 | Anthony’s Decentral opens in Toronto |
January 20–21 | Ethereum group arrives in Miami |
January 25–26 | BTC Miami conference |
Mid- to late February | Jeff, Gavin, and Joe added as cofounders (announced on blog March 5) |
March 1 | Zug crew moves into Spaceship |
March 5 | Ethereum GmbH established in Switzerland |
Early April | Gavin publishes the Ethereum yellow paper |
April 11–13 | Bitcoin Expo in Toronto |
May 26 | Skype call between Stephan Tual and Mathias Grønnebæk in Twickenham and Mihai Alisie, Taylor Gerring, Roxana Sureanu, and Richard Stott in Zug |
May 31–June 1 | Vitalik and Gavin in Vienna; receive call from Stephan and Mathias |
June 3 | Ethereum’s Game of Thrones Day |
July 9 | Stiftung Ethereum created |
July 22 | Crowdsale begins |
September 2 | Crowdsale ends |
November 24–28 | DevCon 0 at ETH Dev in Berlin |
2015
Late February to early March | Foundation meeting; decision to remove current board members and recruit “professional board” |
February–March | Kelley Becker begins as COO of ETH Dev UG |
June 12 | Anthony Di Iorio accused of holding one of the footballs “hostage” |
Mid-June | Wayne Hennessy-Barrett, Lars Klawitter, and Vadim Levitin are brought on as board members |
Ming Chan is hired as executive director | |
July 30 | Ethereum launches |
~August 1–2 | Ming makes accusation against Vadim |
Week of August 9 | Stephan tries to get Vitalik to change early contributor allocations |
August 10 | First version of MyEtherWallet created |
August 15 | Ethereum Foundation pays early contributors |
August 16 | Stephan and Vitalik argue on Reddit about early contributor distributions |
August 18 | MyEtherWallet domain name registered |
Mid- to late August | Stephan fired |
August 22–23 | First Ethereum Foundation board meeting |
~September 2–7 | Vitalik, Ming, and Casey stay at a cabin in Toronto |
September 11 | Casey, Ming, Vitalik, Joe Lubin, Andrew Keys, and others meet at ConsenSys about DevCon 1 |
September 28 | Vitalik publishes blog post about how Ethereum is close to running out of money |
Board directors send official resignation letter | |
November 9–13 | DevCon 1 in London |
Christoph Jentzsch demonstrates the Slock; announces the DAO | |
Late November/early December | Gavin fired |
2016
January 24 | ETH closes above $2 |
February 2 | Ethcore publishes a blog post about how Parity is the fastest Ethereum client |
February 11 | ETH closes above $6 for the first time |
March 2 | The DAO is added to GitHub |
March 13 | ETH hits a new high of $15.26; Vitalik feels comfortable about the Ethereum Foundation’s multiyear runway |
Mid-April | Ming reams Hyperledger’s Brian Behlendorf in phone call |
April 25 | Vitalik, Gavin, and others from the Ethereum Foundation announced as DAO curators |
April 26 | Announcement about establishment of DAO.link |
April 29 | Slock.it makes first proposal to the DAO |
Taylor Van Orden’s fiancé, Kevin, flips a coin to choose the DAO contract | |
April 30 | The DAO sale (“creation period”) launches |
May 13 | Gavin resigns as curator |
May 14 | Miscalculation of when DAO token price rises |
May 24 | “Ethereum is the Forefront of Digital Currency” blog post by Coinbase cofounder |
May 25 | Slock.it makes first DAO security proposal |
May 27 | Emin Gün Sirer and paper coauthors call for a moratorium on the DAO |
May 28 | DAO sale ends/DAO created |
June 5 | Christian Reitwießner discovers the re-entrancy bug exploit, warns other devs about it |
June 9 | Peter Vessenes publishes a blog post about the re-entrancy attack vector |
June 10 | Christian also blogs about it |
June 11 | Vitalik tweets he has been buying DAO tokens since the security news |
June 12 | Stephan Tual publishes “No funds at risk” blog post |
June 14, 02:52 UTC | Child DAO 59, which becomes the Dark DAO, emptied |
June 14, 11:42 UTC | DAO attacker begins turning BTC into DAO tokens and ETH via ShapeShift in multiple transactions (until June 16) |
June 15, 4:26 UTC | DAO attacker votes yes for proposal 59 |
June 17 | DAO hits value of $250 million |
03:34 UTC | DAO attacker begins re-entrancy attack on the DAO |
12:27 UTC | Attacker stops draining funds |
Greg Maxwell emails Vitalik, “Don’t be a greedy idiot” | |
That evening, developers later called the Robin Hood Group (RHG) consider attacking the DAO; Alex van de Sande’s internet goes down | |
Highest day of ETH trading ever | |
June 18, 10:21 UTC | Someone purporting to be the DAO attacker publishes an open letter about how he or she “rightfully claimed 3,641,694 ether” |
Christoph publishes blog post laying out options | |
Robin Hood Group has phone call discussing attempting a rescue | |
June 19 | Lefteris Karapetsas publishes a blog post explaining the options |
June 21 | Copycat attacks begin; Robin Hood Group rescues 7.2 million ETH |
June 22 | Lefteris writes another blog post walking through how the hard and soft forks would work |
RHG realizes there is a “suspected malicious actor” in the White Hat DAO | |
June 23 | Bitcoin Suisse posts a letter from the suspected malicious actor to Reddit |
June 24 | Péter Szilágyi posts soft fork versions of Geth and Parity clients |
Denial-of-service (DoS) attack on soft fork discovered | |
Soft fork called off | |
Early to mid-July | RHG conducts “DAO Wars” (re-entrancy attacks/rescues) on various mini Dark DAOs in order to make sure neither the DAO attacker nor the copycats can cash out |
Polo employee investigating identity of DAO attacker thinks he may have good leads on culprits | |
July 7 | Christoph publishes blog post laying out the remaining issues regarding a hard fork, including how to handle the Extra Balance |
July 9 | Stephan publishes “Why the DAO robber could very well return the ETH on or after July 14” blog post |
July 10 | GitHub page for Ethereum Classic (ETHC) created |
July 11 | RHG whitelists the Dark DAO address in the curator multisig, hoping the DAO attacker will send the siphoned funds there |
July 16 | Carbonvote shows 87 percent of voters in favor of a hard fork |
July 17 | Vitalik publishes blog post explaining how the hard fork will happen |
July 20 | Ethereum hard-forks |
Fat Finger accidentally sends 38,383 ETH to the DAO after the hard fork | |
July 21 | On BitcoinTalk, people post bids to buy “ETHC” |
Kraken trader emails Christoph asking to purchase his “ETHC” | |
Gregory Maxwell emails Vitalik offering Bitcoin for his “ETHC” | |
July 23 | DAO attacker sends out “ETHC” from the Dark DAO to a grandchild DAO |
Ethereum Foundation devs start bashing Ethereum Classic in internal Skype chat | |
July 24 | Poloniex lists ETC |
Ethereum Foundation devs continue trashing ETC in internal Skype chat; a conversation screenshot is posted to Reddit | |
July 25 | Barry Silbert tweets that he bought ETC |
Genesis begins offering over-the-counter trading of ETC | |
July 26 | Bittrex and Kraken list ETC |
ETC:ETH hashing power ratio goes from 6:94 in the morning to 17.5:82.5 by late afternoon Eastern Daylight Time | |
July 27 | BTC-e publishes a blog saying most of its ETC was sent to Polo by its users |
Greg Maxwell emails Vitalik again about purchasing his ETC | |
July 28 | White Hat Group (WHG) rescues every last Wei of Fat Finger’s money from the DAO |
August 1 | ETC price rising; ETH dropping |
Vitalik’s “I am working 100% on ETH” tweet | |
August 2 | ETH falls to $8.20, while ETC jumps to new high of $3.53, 43 percent of ETH’s market cap |
Bitfinex is hacked; crypto markets slump 14 percent | |
August 5 | White Hat Group starts flying into Neuchatel to work on returning ETC |
August 6 | Call with Bitcoin Suisse |
August 7–8 | The WHG decides to return money as ETH, not ETC |
August 8 | The WHG receives its first legal threat, from Berger Singerman |
“Fat Protocols” thesis blog post published | |
August 9 | WHG/Bity deposit ETC to exchanges; deposit blocked on Polo, eventually allowed, then trading on Polo blocked |
August 10 | By phone, second whale demands ETC, not ETH |
August 11 | The WHG receives a second legal threat, demanding immediate refund of ETC, from MME |
August 12 | WHG announces decision to distribute the funds as ETC |
August 16 | WhalePanda publishes blog post “Ethereum: Chain of liars & thieves” |
August 18 | Stephan publishes an apology |
August 26 | Bity posts a revised ETC Withdraw Contract and announces it will be deployed |
August 30 | Bity/WHG deploy the ETC Withdraw Contract |
August 31 | Polo and Kraken deposit the WHG ETC into the Withdraw Contract |
September 6 | The final ETC for the White Hat Withdraw Contract is deposited |
The presumed DAO attacker moves money from the grandchild Dark DAO on ETC to his or her main account, 0x5e8f | |
September 15 | The Extra Balance Withdraw Contract on Ethereum is funded |
September 19 | DevCon 2 begins in Shanghai |
DoS attacks on Ethereum begin | |
October | Poloniex employees realize that new owners have been added |
Sometime this fall, Jules Kim grudgingly gives bitcoin bonus to Johnny Garcia | |
Sometime mid- to late 2016, Jules and Mike Demopoulos allegedly first oppose and then finally acquiesce to adding two-factor authentication to Polo | |
October 18 | Tangerine Whistle hard fork |
October 25 | Ethereum Asia Pacific Ltd. incorporated in Singapore |
DAO attacker begins moving ETC to ShapeShift | |
November 10 | Golem ICO |
November 22 | Spurious Dragon hard fork |
December | Jules and Mike purportedly oppose adding a know-your-customer program to Poloniex so the exchange can comply with US sanctions against Iran; finally acquiesce in first half of 2017 |
2017
January | Early Poloniex employees sign contracts for options for equity in the company, though they are not approved by the board until April |
January 25 | EF files for trademark on “Enterprise Ethereum” and “Enterprise Ethereum Alliance” |
January 31 | Nine ICOs in January raise almost $67 million |
MEW hits one hundred thousand visitors in January | |
Global weekly crypto trade volume hits about $1 billion | |
January/February | Jeff Wilcke collapses |
February 27 | Enterprise Ethereum Alliance announced |
ETH price breaks $15 for the first time since the DAO attack | |
Taylor Gerring’s contract is not renewed by the EF | |
February 28 | Eight ICOs in February raise just over $73 million |
MEW hits 150,000 visits in February | |
Spring | Poloniex owners begin seeking buyers |
March 11 | ETH closes above $20 for the first time |
March 24 | ETH closes above $50 for the first time |
March 31 | Six ICOs in March raise $22 million |
MEW hits three hundred thousand visits in March | |
Global weekly crypto trade volume reaches over $3 billion | |
April 24 | Gnosis ICO ends |
April 27 | Ming upset about “volunteer” project manager |
April 30 | Thirteen ICOs in April raise $85.5 million |
MEW hits 386,000 visits in April | |
May 4 | ETH closes just shy of $97 |
In Skype chat, Ming expresses wish to buy domain names associated with Enterprise Ethereum Alliance on the Ethereum domain name system | |
May 22 | ETH closes above $174 |
Consensus 2017 conference begins | |
May 23 | SEC “crypto czar” Valerie Szczepanik makes her first comments on initial coin offerings |
May 25 | Token Summit |
May 26–27 | Ethereum Foundation delays payment to Ethereum DEV UG |
May 30 | ETH twenty-four-hour volume exceeds that of BTC for the first time |
ETH price closes just shy of $232 | |
May 31 | Basic Attention Token raises nearly $36 million in twenty-four seconds from 210 buyers |
Twenty-two ICOs in May raise $229 million | |
MEW hits one million visits in May | |
June | Security issues—scams, phishing attempts, hacks—pick up |
Poloniex sometimes sees trading volume of $5 billion a week | |
June 10 | ETH price closes just under $338 |
June 12 | Bancor raises $153 million |
ETH price closes above $401 | |
June 14 | Kelley, Ming, and Patrick Storchenegger meet; Kelley quits |
Mid-June to mid-July | Other ETH Dev office staff—CFO Frithjof Weinert and office manager Christian Vömel—also leave |
June 20 | Status ICO |
June 25 | 4chan post claims Vitalik is dead |
ETH price falls, closes above $303 | |
June 26 | EOS launches its yearlong ICO |
June 30 | Thirty-one ICOs in June raise nearly $619 million |
MEW hits 2.7 million visits in June | |
July 1–13 | Tezos ICO raises $232 million |
July 11 | ETH falls to close below $198 |
July 13–19 | Vitalik expresses to Hudson Jameson he would like to remove Ming |
July 16 | ETH price closes above $157 |
July 18 | CoinDash hack |
July 19 | First Parity multisig hack |
July 25 | SEC DAO report |
Thirty-five ICOs in July raise more than $555 million | |
MEW sees 2.6 million visits in July | |
Early August | Ethereum transaction count begins to consistently exceed that of Bitcoin |
August 10 | Anthony Di Iorio sends legal letter to Vitalik, Ming, and Herbert Sterchi |
Gavin tweets to Vitalik that he could have never built Ethereum without Vitalik | |
August 31 | Forty-one ICOs in August raise nearly $438 million |
MEW hits 3.1 million visits in August | |
September | Weekly trading volume peaks on Polo drop to $4 billion, down from $5 billion |
September 11 | Trader from Fidelity and senior vice president from Santander hired at Polo |
September 30 | Sixty-two ICOs in September raise almost $533 million |
MEW hits 3.5 million visits in September | |
October 27 | Polkadot raises over $140 million in ICO |
October 27–November 1 | Account presumed to be controlled by devops199 appears to conduct penetration testing, as if looking for contract vulnerabilities |
October 31 | Eighty ICOs in October raise over $3 billion |
MEW sees 3.5 million visits in October | |
November 1–4 | DevCon 3 in Cancun, Mexico |
November 4 | ConsenSys “Ming must go” email chain begins |
November 5 | Polychain portfolio company San Pedro ceremony |
November 6 | Second Parity multisig attack; funds frozen by devops199 |
November 8 | Bitcoin hard fork called off |
November 14 | Vitalik fires Ming by phone |
November 15 | My email inquiring whether Ming has been fired |
November 16 | Ming posts in Skype channel to “disavow the rumors” |
November 23 | CryptoKitties soft launch |
November 30 | Eighty-four ICOs in November raise nearly $1 billion |
MEW sees 4.6 million visits | |
Early December | Ming, Vitalik, and Casey meet in Hong Kong |
December 17 | Bitcoin hits new all-time high of $20,000 |
Late December–early January | Vitalik, Aya Miyaguchi, and Vitalik’s friends have a retreat in Thailand |
December 31 | Ninety ICOs in December raise $1.3 billion |
MEW hits 7.7 million visits |
2018
January 1 | Friends persuade Vitalik to accelerate Ming’s departure |
January 4 | ETH breaks past $1,000 to a little over $1,045 |
January 7 | ETH trades at $1,153 |
January 8 | ETH hits just under $1,267 |
January 9 | ETH nearly hits $1,321 |
Around now, Vitalik sells seventy thousand of the EF’s ETH | |
January 10 | ETH reaches $1,417 |
January 13 | ETH hits an all-time high over $1,432 |
The New York Times publishes “Everyone Is Getting Hilariously Rich and You’re Not” | |
January 20 | Vitalik and board meet in San Francisco to finalize transition from Ming as executive director to Aya |
Late January | Polo employees informed Circle will be acquiring Polo |
January 31 | Seventy-nine ICOs raise $1.28 billion |
MEW hits ten million visits | |
Ming publishes farewell post on Ethereum blog | |
Aya introduced as new executive director |
See also
Rob Hoeijmakers