Vitaly Dmitriyevich “Vitalik” Buterin (born 31 January 1994) is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer who is best known as one of the co-founders of Ethereum. Buterin became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. In 2014, Buterin launched Ethereum with Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio and Joseph Lubin.
Ethereum is a platform powered by blockchain technology that is best known for its native cryptocurrency—called Ether or ETH or simply Ethereum. The distributed nature of blockchain technology is what makes the Ethereum platform secure, and that security enables ETH to accrue value.
The Ethereum platform supports Ether in addition to a network of decentralized apps, otherwise known as “dApps.” Smart contracts, which originated on the Ethereum platform, are a central component of how the platform operates. Many decentralized finance (DeFi) and other applications use smart contracts in conjunction with blockchain technology.
As a cryptocurrency, Ethereum is second in market value only to Bitcoin as of December, 2021