Ethereum celebrated its 11th birthday on July 30, 2026! Eleven years ago, a small group of developers flipped the switch on a network nobody could promise would work, and it’s been running ever since.
Let’s look back at how it all started, and everything that’s happened since.
When Was Ethereum Created?
In November 2013, a 19-year-old programmer named Vitalik Buterin wrote up his vision for a blockchain that could do more than move money around, something that could run actual programs. He shared it with a small group of contacts first, then took it public in January 2014 at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami.
From there, a founding team came together, Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, Mihai Alisie, and Joseph Lubin among them, and they needed funding to actually build it. In mid-2014, they ran a public crowdfunding campaign, and the response was real. Roughly 31,000 BTC came in, worth about $18 million at the time, enough to fund a year of development.
The Ethereum Genesis Block
On July 30, 2015, at 3:26 PM UTC, Ethereum’s very first block was mined. The actual birthday that we celebrate each year, the moment the network stopped being a whitepaper.
The release was called Frontier, and it was about as bare-bones as a launch gets. There was no polished app, no friendly interface, just command-line tools built for developers who already knew what they were doing.
If Bitcoin is a calculator, Ethereum was built to be a smartphone, one machine capable of running far more than a single, fixed function, – Vitalik Buterin said in an interview.
You can watch it here and learn more about our birthday-platform!
11 Years of Leadership
Eleven years is a long time for any piece of software to still be actively evolving, and Ethereum hasn’t exactly stood still.
The biggest shift came on September 15, 2022, with an upgrade known as The Merge. Ethereum moved from proof-of-work, the energy-intensive mining model it launched with, to proof-of-stake, cutting the network’s energy use by over 99% almost overnight. It’s still one of the largest live infrastructure changes any major blockchain has ever pulled off without missing a beat.
Since then, the upgrades haven’t stopped. Fusaka, Ethereum’s most recent major upgrade, went live on December 3, 2025, continuing the network’s steady push toward more scalability and lower costs. Eleven years later, Ethereum remains a project in active development, which shows a clear testament to the seriousness and care with which its creators approach it.
Where Ethereum Stands at 11
Eleven years in, Ethereum is arguably in one of its stronger stretches yet. This past July, Ether actually outpaced Bitcoin, rising around 11% over seven trading sessions while Bitcoin moved about 4.2% over the same window, helped along by renewed ETF demand and growing real usage on newer networks built around it.
Zoom out further, and Ethereum sits at the center of some of the bigger shifts happening in crypto right now. Real-world asset tokenization, a huge share of which runs on the network, crossed $26.9 billion in active assets this year alone. Institutional interest keeps growing too, and not just from crypto-native funds. Traditional finance has been showing up in a bigger way, treating Ethereum less like an experiment and more like real infrastructure worth building on.
Happy birthday, Ethereum! At Evercode Lab we’re glad to be watching, and even happier to be building on top of what you started.
FAQ
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum is a blockchain network that can run smart contracts and decentralized applications, not just transfer digital money. It allows developers to build crypto wallets, DeFi platforms, NFT marketplaces, tokenized assets, games, and many other Web3 products on top of one shared network.
How old is Ethereum?
Ethereum turned 11 years old on July 30, 2026. The network has been running since 2015 and has continued to evolve through major upgrades, including The Merge and later scalability-focused updates.
What is Ethereum used for?
Ethereum is used for smart contracts, decentralized finance, NFTs, tokenized assets, stablecoins, Web3 apps, DAOs, and blockchain-based infrastructure. Many developers use Ethereum because it lets them build programmable financial and digital products on a public blockchain.
Is Ethereum proof-of-stake now?
Yes. Since The Merge in 2022, Ethereum has used proof-of-stake instead of proof-of-work. This means the network is secured by validators who stake ETH, rather than miners competing with energy-intensive hardware.