Vitalik Buterin and the eight founders of Ethereum: why is he the only one still坚持?

On June 7, 2014, in a residential house in Switzerland, eight idealistic developers gathered under the leadership of Vitalik Buterin to witness the birth of Ethereum. This place, known as the “Rocket Ship,” marked the beginning of one of the most transformative projects in blockchain history. However, over a decade later, when Ethereum’s market capitalization surpassed the milestone of 150 billion USD, only Vitalik Buterin remained steadfast, while the other seven founders went their separate ways, embarking on entirely different life paths.

This story of division fundamentally reflects a deeper contradiction: Should Ethereum become a profit-driven commercial company, or maintain its original non-profit mission? This seemingly simple choice became a crossroads that determined the fate of the entire founding team.

The Ideological Disputes Among Ethereum Founders: Profit vs. Non-Profit

In 1987, Anthony Di Iorio first met Vitalik Buterin at a Bitcoin conference. Two years later, at the end of 2013, Vitalik Buterin, together with Charles Hoskinson, Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Iorio, and Amir Chetrit, officially formed the initial team of Ethereum. By 2014, Joseph Lubin, Gavin Wood, and Jeffrey Wilcke joined successively, completing the eight-member team.

However, this seemingly perfect combination faced irreconcilable differences over “operational direction.” Under Vitalik Buterin’s insistence, Ethereum chose the non-profit route. This decision acted like a watershed, dividing the founding team into two camps. Those eager for commercialization gradually left one after another.

From Cardano to Polkadot: Founders’ Entrepreneurial Maps

Charles Hoskinson’s Path to Cardano

Charles Hoskinson was one of the earliest founders to leave Ethereum. As CEO, he was responsible for establishing the Ethereum Foundation and its legal framework, but just a few months later, he fundamentally opposed Vitalik Buterin on operational models. Hoskinson advocated transforming Ethereum into a profit-making enterprise, which Buterin firmly rejected.

This divergence deepened during the 2016 DAO incident. When Ethereum executed a hard fork to fix the DAO vulnerability, Hoskinson supported Ethereum Classic, and subsequently founded Cardano (ADA). This project, claiming to be “science-driven and research-oriented,” adopted a development strategy vastly different from Ethereum—prioritizing research and cautious implementation. Today, Cardano ranks among the top ten blockchain projects by market cap, representing Hoskinson’s alternative vision for Ethereum.

Gavin Wood and the Decentralization Dream of Polkadot

Gavin Wood, Ethereum’s first CTO, possessed unparalleled technical talent. In 2014, he nearly single-handedly completed Ethereum’s first working prototype (PoC 1) and authored the renowned “Ethereum Yellow Paper,” laying the formal technical foundation for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). In Ethereum’s early development, Gavin Wood’s coding ability was irreplaceable.

However, Wood held deep philosophical differences regarding Ethereum’s development direction. After leaving Ethereum at the end of 2015, he founded EthCore and eventually developed the Parity client—a version of Ethereum that outperformed Geth in performance. More importantly, in 2014, Wood proposed the concept of “Web3,” which later became a guiding philosophy for blockchain development.

Yet, Wood remained cautious about Ethereum’s evolution. He believed that governance through hard forks conflicted with decentralization principles, and that using ETH as the sole fee payment deviated from the original vision of a “free-market DEX.” Driven by these disagreements, he founded the Polkadot project, positioned as an “Ethereum killer,” which has now become Ethereum’s most formidable competitor.

Joseph Lubin and the Prosperity of the ConsenSys Ecosystem

Compared to founders who launched competing projects, Joseph Lubin took a different path. With a strong background—holding degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University and a successful career across various fields—Lubin was among the most experienced Ethereum founders. When Ethereum decided on a non-profit model, Lubin chose a compromise: founding ConsenSys.

This company became one of the most influential forces in the Ethereum ecosystem. ConsenSys developed MetaMask, a wallet essential for Web3 users, with millions of daily active users. More importantly, it nurtured numerous Ethereum-based blockchain projects and startups, fueling the ecosystem’s rapid growth.

Unlike projects that directly compete with Ethereum, Lubin’s approach led to broader commercial success. ConsenSys’s investments and incubations span Ethereum, Filecoin, and other blockchains, forming a vast business network.

Other Founders’ Personal Choices

Anthony Di Iorio also left due to frustrations with the non-profit model, later founding Decentral to develop the Jaxx digital wallet. In 2018, Forbes listed him among the top 20 wealthiest figures in cryptocurrency, with a net worth estimated between 750 million and 1 billion USD. However, in 2021, he suddenly announced his exit from the crypto industry, planning to sell Decentral for “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Mihai Alisie gradually stepped back from Ethereum at the end of 2015, turning to develop Akasha—a social network framework based on Ethereum and IPFS. Amir Chetrit left quickly due to lack of enthusiasm for the technology and Ethereum’s vision. Jeffrey Wilcke developed Geth, a widely used Ethereum client, but after multiple hard forks, hacking incidents, and the birth of his son, he gradually handed over Geth’s maintenance to Peter Szilagyi and shifted his focus to game development.

Vitalik Buterin’s Perseverance: The Sole Guardian of Faith

Faced with such division, only Vitalik Buterin remained unwavering. This young genius, awakened to the ideals of decentralization through game balance adjustments in “World of Warcraft,” proved his steadfastness through his actions.

Vitalik Buterin has never wavered from Ethereum’s non-profit mission, driven by his unwavering belief in decentralization and power distribution. He even openly admitted that when Ethereum’s market cap exceeded 500 billion USD, he never imagined the project would grow to such a scale—“I just wanted to finish this project in a few months and then go back to university.”

More importantly, Vitalik Buterin deeply understands the difficulty of internal team coordination. He has stated that gathering a group of geniuses is easy, but aligning their thoughts is one of the most challenging aspects of Ethereum’s development. As he put it: “Coordinating a small team is much harder than I imagined. You can’t just expect people to see each other’s good intentions. It’s even more difficult when there are significant motivational conflicts.”

The New Pattern of the Ethereum Ecosystem: Vitality in Diversity

Ironically, although the founders went their separate ways, Ethereum has become the “military academy” of the Web3 world. Early Ethereum community developers inherited Vitalik Buterin’s vision, driving continuous ecosystem evolution. Projects incubated by ConsenSys, the explosion of DeFi protocols, the boom in NFTs, and innovations in IDO fundraising—all stem from the pioneering spirit of the Ethereum community.

The projects that split off over the years have now grown into key industry players: Cardano offers an academically driven alternative, and Polkadot represents the future of multi-chain interoperability. Yet, Ethereum, thanks to Vitalik Buterin’s perseverance and community cohesion, maintains the strongest vitality among these ecosystems.

Conclusion: The Eternal Tension Between Ideals and Reality

Vitalik Buterin once said that his biggest regret (beyond technology) was the hasty choices in founding the project and the eventual split of the team. His reflection reveals a profound truth: “Gathering geniuses is easy, but integrating their ideas is one of the hardest lessons in Ethereum’s development.”

Today, Ethereum has become a cornerstone of the Web3 ecosystem, and Vitalik Buterin, through his unwavering commitment to decentralization, has earned the respect of the global crypto community. He exemplifies what it means to be a true “V God”—not just a technical genius, but someone who remains true to his original ideals in the face of temptation and division. The past splits have now become witnesses to the diverse development of blockchain, and under Vitalik Buterin’s leadership, Ethereum has found vitality even amid the team’s fragmentation.