Ethereum - The Story of Crypto Valley

Transcript

Crypto Valley... What defines Crypto Valley for me? Hmm. Crypto Valley is not only about the technologies or the companies, but about the environment. If you have a cool crypto idea, this is the place where you can come and make it happen. We were looking at a number of jurisdictions, including Canada, Singapore, Germany, U.K., Netherlands and a few others.

Switzerland was one of them. I was the one who volunteered, “Okay, I'm going to go to Switzerland and see what’s there.” It was funny when they arrived with their Mobility car and parked in the Park Hotel and got a parking ticket. We went into a few offices and people asked, “did you bring your class with you, what are you teaching?” People were laughing at me. We moved briefly into Herbert’s apartment, on the floor, taking it over you know, ten people

in a two-bedroom apartment. It was quite crazy and fun. Then we could rent a place at Grienbachstrasse 55 in Inwil That was the first place, which is now known as the Ethereum spaceship where we had our headquarters. In the earliest days, we were living, breathing, dreaming Ethereum all day, all night long. At the time, it was the most successful crowdfunding campaign ever in 42 days.

Before the crowdsale you ask, “are we crazy or is this going to work?” And after the first hours of the crowdsale in the first 24 hours we already had the first millions, wow. I remember how they said, “look at the money coming in.” All of a sudden, it was $18 million. And then, the discussions started. “Who is contributing what, who is doing what?” I suggested they first finish the whole thing and then quarrel about the distribution. That stage was maybe the most vulnerable when Ethereum could have just as easily ended as one of the cool ideas that never happened.

Now we just had to find the right people also to build the vision forward. And under that tree, there, where you also have the rocks, I also have a picture of it, we were able to pay the salaries for the first time from the bitcoins that we raised. It’s real, you know. Before that it was still just those numbers on some screen somewhere in the UI. It's not just that crazy idea it's that crazy reality now. The ether price was very low.

Once it was 22 cents, then it went up to 70 cents. And then like a miracle, nobody knew why, the price went through the roof and liquidity was no longer a problem. End of July 2015, we had the genesis of the Ethereum blockchain. And that was the point where, you know, the cat was out of the bag and Ethereum as this crazy idea of a permissionless blockchain, credibly neutral, where anyone from everywhere can build their own application, unstoppable applications, was out there in the world.

It was really twelve months of absolute stress emotionally, socially, but everybody was happy to build something new, and now, looking back, this is fantastic. It's still hard to believe at times that it’s been ten years since this, since this moment and slowly but surely we are seeing some of the crazy things, or deemed crazy by others, are becoming reality. “See man, the banks, I told you they’re doing stuff with blockchain.” Or big sports clubs doing stuff, and I think we're still only in the beginning.

And the coolest things that will be built with this technology have not been yet published. It’s perhaps one of many businesses that was successful. I’m happy I was part of it. In many startups you have a similar experience but never such a huge success. Yeah, still exciting times, still early for anyone who is interested in doing stuff in this industry.