The early days of Ethereum according to former core developer Christoph

I recently had a fascinating conversation with Christoph Jentzsch, a former core developer of Ethereum and author of The DAO.

Christoph was there during the launch of Ethereum and the rise and fall of The DAO and it was amazing to hear him talk about it.

I also learned a lot about the Ethereum lore that I wasn’t aware of.

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Christoph’s introduction to blockchain was somewhat accidental. Coming from a background in theoretical physics, his search for cheap GPUs led him to Bitcoin mining. This curiosity paved the way for his involvement with Ethereum, a project initiated by enthusiasts from the Bitcoin community who were captivated by the possibilities of decentralization and the creation of a permissionless ecosystem.

Building Ethereum

The point was never to build just another cryptocurrency. As most core Ethereum devs came from Bitcoin, it was already clear to them that Bitcoin is the digital currency of the Internet. The question was what else can be done with blockchain technology?

It aimed to be a platform for decentralized applications (DApps), leveraging a decentralized computer to execute code on…