What Happened to Ethereum's 8 Co-Founders?
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What Happened to Ethereum's 8 Co-Founders?
Together we are a blazing fire; scattered, we become stars across the sky.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Original Author: Huo Huo
On June 7, 2014, under the witness of eight co-founders, Ethereum’s vision was born in a rental house nicknamed the "spaceship" nestled in the Swiss woods.
Today, its market capitalization has exceeded $150 billion at peak levels. Ever since Ethereum's inception, the cryptocurrency industry has been shaken by a storm, triggering wave after wave of enthusiasm across the Web3 world—from concepts like ICOs and NFTs to DeFi and IDO.
Even the very concept of Web3 originated from one of Ethereum’s co-founders.
Ethereum stands as the epicenter of this storm—a decentralized consensus built by idealists—but internally, it has also weathered many storms of its own.
Originally, Ethereum had a longer list of founders. According to one of them, Anthony Di Iorio, there were five founding members in December 2013: Vitalik Buterin, Anthony Di Iorio, Charles Hoskinson, Mihai Alisie, and Amir Chetrit. In 2014, three more joined as co-founders: Joseph Lubin, Gavin Wood, and Jeffrey Wilcke.
Eventually, these eight went their separate ways; today, only Vitalik remains actively involved with Ethereum.
The main reason behind the rift among the eight was a heated dispute over whether Ethereum should become a for-profit company or remain non-profit. Although Ethereum began with eight co-founders, during its growth, irreconcilable differences—especially around conflicting visions—led each step forward to come at the cost of ideological splits within the community and departures from the team.
Today, aside from Vitalik, most people are unfamiliar with the names of the others—this is exactly what Baihua Blockchain aims to share.
Those Who Became Competitors
1) Community Rival Charles Hoskinson
Image source: internet
Charles Hoskinson was one of Ethereum’s original five co-founders. Born in Hawaii, he initially wanted to become a mathematician but found Bitcoin far more fascinating than math, leading him into the blockchain space.
In December 2013, Hoskinson was appointed CEO (Chief Executive Officer), responsible for establishing the Swiss foundation and its legal framework. During Ethereum’s early days, he laid solid groundwork as CEO, particularly in setting up the foundation, developing its structure, and building essential legal frameworks.
However, his tenure lasted only a few months, partly due to conflicts with other founders. Hoskinson wanted Ethereum to be a for-profit enterprise, while Vitalik envisioned it as a non-profit platform.
Rumors about his departure vary: he claims he left voluntarily, while others say Vitalik fired him.
Either way, it’s widely known that the two didn’t particularly like each other and occasionally mocked each other’s approaches.
During the 2016 DAO incident that led to Ethereum’s fork, Charles took the opportunity to support Ethereum Classic (ETC), then left to establish Cardano.
Cardano is an emerging next-generation blockchain smart contract platform aiming to become a faster, more efficient, and intelligent foundational public chain, claiming to be the first blockchain project driven by “scientific philosophy and research-first principles” (ADA (Ada) is its native token).
Unlike Ethereum’s development model, Cardano prioritizes research before implementation, adopting a conservative approach that may make it more acceptable to traditional industries. Its ADA cryptocurrency surged in 2021. Cardano also allows users to build their own projects. Currently, it boasts a large community and has emerged as a strong competitor to Ethereum.
2) Public Chain Rival Gavin Wood
Image source: internet
Gavin Wood is best known for his exceptional engineering skills—the ability to turn ideas into code through sound architectural design and programming. Among many blockchain developers, he is regarded as a god-tier programmer and technical leader.
In 2013, Gavin, who had recently developed an interest in blockchain, met Vitalik through an old friend. After hearing Vitalik’s idea for Ethereum, Gavin found the concept of programmable blockchains intriguing and decided to help write the code.
In 2014, he traveled to Miami and co-founded Ethereum with Vitalik and several others. There, Gavin developed the first working version of Ethereum, commonly referred to as Ethereum PoC 1 or the Alpha version.
Afterward, Gavin served as Ethereum’s first CTO (Chief Technology Officer). In 2014, he authored the “Ethereum Yellow Paper,” which formally defined the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)—the first technical specification of a blockchain state machine.
Over the next two years, Gavin dedicated himself fully to Ethereum’s development, including designing the general-purpose platform architecture, completing much of the C++ client development, and creating Solidity—an object-oriented programming language for writing Ethereum smart contracts.
The concept of Web3 was proposed by Gavin Wood in 2014—to create a decentralized, open network environment that breaks today’s internet monopolies, returning data and privacy to users. He hoped to use blockchain technology to eliminate platform exploitation of users, ensuring transparency and truth so society no longer relies on human trust.
He summarized the core of Web3 as: "Less trust, more truth."
In late 2015, Gavin left Ethereum and founded EthCore.
An ambitious and challenge-seeking individual, Gavin later gathered over 60 developers from 15 countries and introduced the Rust-based Ethereum Parity client. EthCore evolved into Parity Technologies, delivering performance far surpassing Geth and the C++ client.
This eventually became the Polkadot blockchain protocol—a chain believed capable of growing into a new ecosystem potentially replacing Ethereum. Today, Polkadot has indeed become a formidable competitor to Ethereum.
The exact reasons for Gavin’s departure remain unclear, though speculation suggests disagreements between Gavin and Vitalik over Ethereum’s direction.
In later interviews, Gavin mentioned his disapproval of Ethereum’s governance via hard forks, and believed restricting transaction fees solely to ETH deviated from Ethereum’s original goal of becoming a “free-market DEX.”
It seems, in Gavin’s view, Ethereum could not fulfill his vision for Web3.0.
Those Who Became Partners
1) The Wealthy and Influential Joseph Lubin
Image source: internet
Joseph Lubin was the most experienced among Ethereum’s eight co-founders. Born in the UK in 1987, Lubin graduated from Princeton University with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. After graduation, he pursued diverse careers in software engineering, music production, business, and finance. Later, he became interested in cryptocurrencies and connected with fellow Canadian Di Iorio through the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada.
In 2014, he met Vitalik. After reading Vitalik’s white paper, he strongly agreed with the vision and gladly accepted an invitation to join the co-founding team. At the time, he was responsible for proposing and implementing Ethereum’s architecture using the C++ programming language, focusing primarily on technical aspects. Additionally, thanks to his wealthy background, he and Di Iorio provided substantial financial backing for Ethereum’s early development.
Later, when Ethereum chose to operate as a non-profit, Joseph left the community due to differing development visions.
Lubin founded ConsenSys, a for-profit Ethereum development company, which launched numerous projects on the network—one well-known example being MetaMask, the popular “fox wallet.”
Since Joseph aimed for commercial success, ConsenSys shifted focus from purely open-source Ethereum development to building applications and extensively incubating blockchain startups. While primarily based on the Ethereum platform, it also supports projects on other platforms such as Filecoin and Polkadot.
Today, ConsenSys has become an incubator for other blockchain startups and maintains partnerships with major traditional companies like JPMorgan, UBS, BP, Intel, and Microsoft.
2) Bitcoin Believer Mihai Alisie
Image source: internet
Alisie hails from Romania and graduated from Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu in 2010 with a degree in Cybernetics, Economic Informatics, and Statistics.
Initially, Vitalik wrote articles about Bitcoin on forums and blogs, catching the attention of Bitcoin enthusiast Mihai Alisie. They began communicating actively and ultimately co-founded Bitcoin Magazine in late 2011. At the time, Vitalik was chief writer, and Alisie served as editor-in-chief.
Later, when Vitalik created Ethereum, Alisie enthusiastically responded. He helped establish Ethereum’s base in Switzerland, consolidated the initial startup entities, and led the creation of crucial business infrastructure and legal frameworks for Ethereum’s crowdfunding campaign—such as opening a bank account for the fledgling crypto company (reportedly a difficult task at the time) and negotiating legal frameworks with lawyers and Swiss officials critical to the pre-sale.
Alisie said, "In the early days, we were a group of people with big ideas and ambitions, uncertain whether we’d succeed."
During Ethereum’s early phase, he also assisted in strategic planning and served as vice-chairman of the Ethereum Foundation. By late 2015, after discussions about whether Ethereum needed to generate profit, and finding the trajectory misaligned with expectations, he gradually stepped back and devoted himself to Akasha, a social framework built on Ethereum.
Akasha uses Ethereum and IPFS to build applications. Alisie hopes his social framework will further grow with Ethereum 2.0 and Filecoin.
Those Who Left the Crypto Industry
1) The Retired Anthony Di Iorio
Image source: internet
Like Vitalik, Anthony Di Iorio is also from Toronto. His ventures span marketing and venture capital. He was also executive director of the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada and organized Toronto’s first Bitcoin summit. In November 2012, he met Vitalik at a Bitcoin meetup.
Like Joseph Lubin mentioned above, Di Iorio shares a key trait—he is also a wealthy second-generation heir, thanks mainly to a rich father. At the end of 2013, he funded and co-founded Ethereum. Specific responsibilities aren't well-documented, but he stated his motivation simply: to make more money.
His retreat mirrored Joseph’s—he opposed Ethereum operating as a non-profit. After Ethereum adopted its non-profit model, Di Iorio gradually stepped back and soon left entirely.
After leaving, Di Iorio briefly served as Chief Digital Officer at the Toronto Stock Exchange.
But wealth brings freedom—to choose what you want to do. With assets in hand, he wanted to pursue bigger things.
Thus, in 2016, he left and founded Decentral, launching the Jaxx digital wallet. The wallet debuted in May 2018.
That same year, Di Iorio was ranked among Forbes’ top 20 richest figures in cryptocurrency, with an estimated net worth between $750 million and $1 billion.
However, in summer 2021, Anthony Di Iorio announced he would exit the crypto industry for personal safety reasons and intended to sell his blockchain company, Decentral Inc., for “hundreds of millions of dollars.” He did not disclose how much cryptocurrency he held and stated he would sever ties with other startups he participated in, cease funding any blockchain projects, and instead focus on charity and other fields.
2) Investment-Oriented Amir Chetrit
Image source: internet
An Israeli professional with a computer science background, Chetrit earned his first fortune in real estate development. He dropped out in 2008 and entered real estate, where the financial crisis sparked skepticism toward traditional financial systems. He later turned to Bitcoin, seeing it as a good opportunity to earn more money.
In September 2013, at a Bitcoin event in Amsterdam, Amir Chetrit met Vitalik.
At the time, he was working with the Israeli startup Colored Coins, which aimed to manage real-world assets as tokens on top of the Bitcoin network. Vitalik had previously contributed to this project before proposing Ethereum. In December 2013, Chetrit was invited by Vitalik to join Ethereum’s creation.
Given his real estate and investment background, he may have lacked passion for technology or Ethereum’s vision, and his specific role wasn’t elaborated.
At the co-founders’ meeting in June 2014, Chetrit was criticized by Ethereum developers and other co-founders for insufficient commitment and chose to resign, later moving into other industries.
3) Developer Jeffrey Wilcke
Image source: internet
Jeffrey Wilcke, another computer programmer, encountered Ethereum while working on Mastercoin—the first ICO—in the Netherlands. Intrigued, he quietly began coding an implementation using Google’s Go language. In early 2014, he joined the founding team alongside Gavin Wood.
His implementation, known as Go Ethereum, is commonly abbreviated as “Geth.”
He can be considered a key early programmer for Ethereum. While Gavin Wood implemented Ethereum in C++, Jeffrey independently achieved the same using Golang—pioneering a new path in blockchain development.
Image source: internet
After enduring Ethereum’s hard fork, a series of hacking incidents, and the birth of his son, Wilcke handed oversight of Geth to his trusted deputy, Peter Szilagyi.
Currently, he runs a game development studio called Grid Games with his brother Joey. Reports suggest he sold some ETH to fund hiring developers for Grid Games.
Vitalik Buterin: Staying True to the Vision
Image source: internet
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, affectionately called “Vitalik” by Chinese fans. Anyone called a “god” usually carries legends.
First, Vitalik’s prodigy image: a genius youth excelling in math and programming, winning a bronze medal at the 2012 International Olympiad in Informatics during his freshman year.
Yet there’s a contrast between his legendary status and his appearance/personality. Vitalik is small and thin, resembling a “sprite,” walks stiffly but runs fast. Once, after an Ethereum community event, he slipped out of the venue quickly, leaving fans unable to catch up. Introverted and uninterested in fashion, he dresses simply and comfortably. Occasionally, his mouth twitches when speaking. Most of the time, he immerses himself in his own world. Hence arose many myths: Vitalik is an autistic prodigy; once wore mismatched Hello Kitty socks on a train; keeps all his belongings in a single suitcase; eats lemons with the peel on. However, according to reports, Vitalik’s father has denied these claims. Yet Ethereum community members love adding bricks to the mythos of Vitalik. Is this what they mean by “Don’t idolize the legend—because the legend is just a legend?”
What inspired him to explore Bitcoin and the emerging crypto industry was a video game. Starting at age 13 (2007), he became deeply addicted to World of Warcraft. By 2010, Blizzard updated its system, forcing changes to his character attributes. Unable to accept this, he quit the game and realized the dangers of centralized services.
From then on, Vitalik viewed government regulation and corporate centralization as inherent flaws. Naturally, Bitcoin’s decentralized nature—immune to control by any individual or institution—captured his deep interest. When he first heard about Bitcoin, it lit a spark. Later, he searched online forums for jobs paying in Bitcoin and stumbled upon an opportunity to write articles for Bitcoin rewards.
Ethereum’s conception originally stemmed from Vitalik’s desire to improve Bitcoin. As a columnist conducting extensive research, he identified limitations in Bitcoin and tried proposing improvements within the community. But back then, he was young and unknown—Bitcoin community leaders largely ignored his suggestions.
Fortunately, Vitalik excelled at explaining complex ideas. He drafted a white paper based on BTC’s underlying principles, proposing a new platform where any censorship-resistant, decentralized application could exist. Thus, a broader-purpose blockchain platform—the “world computer”—was born.
Vitalik started using computers at a young age | Image source: BAZAAR
When Ethereum’s total market cap surpassed $500 billion, Vitalik admitted he never expected it to become such a massive entity or that things would get so complicated: “When I created Ethereum, I thought I’d finish it in a few months and go back to university.”
Nevertheless, both in terms of personal branding and technical expertise, Vitalik has made immense contributions to Ethereum’s growth. In recent years, he has gradually stepped back, focusing on Ethereum 2.0—and remains the only co-founder still actively working on Ethereum-related projects.
Summary
Indeed, among Ethereum’s eight co-founders—whether rivals like Charles Hoskinson and Gavin Wood, those who exited the industry like Anthony Di Iorio, Amir Chetrit, and Jeffrey Wilcke, or those who founded companies supporting Ethereum’s application and community layers like Mihai Alisie and Joseph Lubin—only Vitalik remains.
Vitalik once said that the biggest regret (non-technical) of his Ethereum journey was hastily assembling “eight co-founders” only to see them drift apart. Gathering great minds is easy, but aligning their thoughts and maintaining unity—that, Vitalik says, was the hardest lesson in Ethereum’s development.
“Coordinating closely among small groups proved harder than I imagined. You can’t just gather people in a circle expecting them to naturally act kindly toward one another—especially when facing significant incentive conflicts.”
——Vitalik
Today, Ethereum is hailed as Web3’s “Whampoa Military Academy.” Despite early founders launching new ventures, Ethereum’s ecosystem has matured, developer communities continue to expand, and many founders of top-ranked public chains and projects today stem from former Ethereum community members. They’re collectively advancing and strengthening Web3’s evolution. This might be what sets it apart from traditional industries—or perhaps the charm of blockchain: demonstrating how decentralization can thrive and flourish with its own vitality.
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