https://nasacademy.com/blog/article/vitalik-buterin-net-worth

Net Worth

Vitalik Buterin Net Worth

The story behind the inventor of Ethereum

Team Nas Academy

10 Jun · 5 mins read

Ethereum is one of the biggest blockchains in crypto, and promises to revolutionize how the space works with Ethereum 2.0. Its creator, Vitalik Buterin, is one of the biggest innovators and investors in the space, and has amassed a vast fortune from his inventions and investments. 

At the height of his wealth, Vitalik was worth $1.5 billion. Since the latest crypto crash, his net worth has plummeted — in May 2022 he reported that he is no longer a billionaire. Read more to find out the why, and what Vitalik does during tough times! 

Want to learn more about crypto? Discover our community with classes taught by experts in Web3, crypto, and NFTs at Nas Academy Web3 Community

Vitalik Buterin Net Worth: 

$700 million 

 

Vitalik’s Childhood

Vitaly Dmitriyevich “Vitalik” Buterin was born in Kolomna, Russia on January 31, 1994. His father was a computer scientist, and moved his family to Canada in search of better opportunities when Vitalik was six years old. 

Even as a young child, Vitalik showed a talent for computer programming and math, and in the third grade he was placed into a gifted program to accelerate his studies. He went on to study at a private high school in Toronto. It was around this time that he learned about Bitcoin from his father at the age of 17.

After completing high school, Vitalik began his studies at the University of Waterloo, where he took advanced courses and worked as a research assistant to cryptographer Ian Goldberg. He proposed what would become Ethereum as early as 2013, and dropped out of university in 2014 after being offered a $100,000 grant from the Thiel Fellowship. Vitalik used this opportunity to work on developing Ethereum full-time. 

Vitalik Discovers Bitcoin

Despite learning about Bitcoin years earlier, Vitalik only began investigating it in 2011 after his World of Warcraft character had been nerfed by a game update. A long-time and avid gamer, Vitalik was horrified that a centralized organization had such power over his game. Vitalik quit on the spot, furious that a group of people had destroyed what he had spent 3 years building.

It was here that he began to search for an alternative to centralized organizations, and came across Bitcoin for the second time. This time, he paid attention.  

In hindsight, it had been perfect timing for Vitalik. It was a time where he had a vacuum in place of the time he had spent on World of Warcraft. He said he had needed something else to replace the obsession World of Warcraft had been for him.

Bitcoin turned out to be the perfect replacement, and he began to research cryptocurrency and decentralized finances. Desperate to invest, he found that the community was very difficult to break into, especially as he didn’t have the finances to buy Bitcoin for himself. 

So, he looked for alternative ways to get in. Fortunately, this was still early days when Bitcoin wasn’t prohibitively expensive, and there were opportunities to earn Bitcoin for relatively little effort. 

Vitalik began writing for a crypto publication, where the owner paid his writers 5 Bitcoin per article. Unfortunately, this endeavor didn’t last long as the publication made no revenue, and had to shut down. 

A friend of Vitalik’s, Mihai Alisie, reached out to him soon after with an interesting proposal… to start their own magazine called Bitcoin Magazine. Vitalik accepted the offer, and became the co-founder of one of the first serious publications that focused exclusively on crypto. 

Vitalik Creates Ethereum

All the while, Vitalik was working on Ethereum white paper. And it was scary for him — he had never done this before, and was working in an industry where there was hardly any established standard. So, when he sent the white paper for Ethereum out to his friends in crypto, who knew so much more than he did… their reaction shocked him. 

Rather than pointing out obvious flaws in the design that he imagined, or telling him it was impossible, they told him it was good to go. And so the blockchain that would change crypto forever was born. 

Vitalik’s experiences with Bitcoin and crypto all led towards the development of Ethereum, of which he is the co-founder and inventor. He began working on Ethereum as a white paper specifically aimed at coding for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. 

Vitalik has described Ethereum as a “decentralized mining network and software development platform rolled into one,” and is now one of the most widely used blockchains in crypto. Its native currency, Ether, is the second most valuable after Bitcoin. 

With Ethereum 2.0, which promises to have a far lower environmental impact than its previous version, it stands ready to become the biggest blockchains in the business. 

Vitalik’s Current Path

Despite dropping out of university, Vitalik continues to collaborate with experts in research to push crypto further than ever before. He’s mentioned before that one of his main motivations is to upset the balance of power in the world’s established systems, where few powerful people control resources and financial institutions. 

He also acknowledges that upsetting this power balance means that the underdog will be taking from the powerful — it’s only inevitable when there’s a transition of power, and he describes power as a “zero sum game”.

He shows this through his generosity. When India was suffering from the COVID pandemic, he donated over 50 trillion Shiba Inu coins to a COVID-relief fund in India. They were worth $1 billion at the time.

In early 2022, between his NFTs and cryptocurrency, Vitalik had the equivalent of $1.5 billion in his crypto wallet. However, the recent crash changed that and, in May 2022, he announced that he was no longer a billionaire. 

Before his loss of $800 million, Vitalik has said that many dedicated crypto investors, including him, welcome a lower price of cryptocurrency. He takes a more positive perspective, whereas other prominent members of the crypto community seem to regret their decisions. 

This includes Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, who has lost 84% of his wealth — over $80 billion.

The trick though, as the Winklevoss twins advise, is to HODL — hold on for dear life. Periodic crashes have become the norm in crypto, and those who hold through the dip invariably see their losses recover. 

Shortly after the crash, Vitalik tweeted about finding the balance between passion and open-mindedness. “One broader sort-of-contradiction I think about is the open-mindedness vs passion tradeoff. Is it possible to both passionately act on the world based on your current beliefs and be open minded to the possibility that those beliefs are very wrong?” 

He did clarify in the thread that he doesn’t think Ethereum was a mistake, but it is good to know that even the creator of one of the biggest blockchains is willing to step back and think. It shows that he’s open to learning, rebuilding after mistakes, and working to make the space even better. 

There’s no doubt that Vitalik is practicing HODL and will last through this current crash — and come back more successful than ever. We’re all looking forward to what he has for us next. 

Web3 Community

For the first time ever, top experts have come together with Nas Academy to form a web3 learning community – and you’re invited!

Whether you’re launching an NFT project, investing in Bitcoin or NFTs, or are curious about how web3 works, you’ll discover that “community” is the foundation of the web3 space. And now, you can join a vibrant and supportive community full of web3 enthusiasts like yourself.

This community offers a safe space to network, learn, and collaborate with some of the most innovative thinkers around the world. On top of that, we’ve pooled all our resources to give you access to thousands of dollars worth of Nas Academy resources (including our best-rated classes) all under 1 subscription.

By subscribing to the Nas Academy Web3 Community, you’ll also be invited to join exclusive events and workshops with the world’s leading experts – an opportunity that you won’t easily find anywhere else. So, if you’re looking to learn more and discuss web3 with others who share your interests, subscribe today and join the movement that’s changing the Internet. 

You might also like:

Join a Class For Free

Enter your email and we’ll send you information to join a free trial of one of our favorite courses.

Copyright © 2021 All Rights Reserved by Nas Education