Ethereum is a decentralised, public, open-source blockchain that runs smart contracts; applications that run as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference. Its native cryptocurrency is called Ether. It is used to pay for the execution of these smart contracts. This book is a concise chronological history of the events from the inception of Ethereum to the 17th March 2017.



Major topics covered in this book include:



Initial publication of the Ethereum Whitepaper in 2013.



Formal announcement at the North American Bitcoin Conference in 2014.



Funds raised for development during the "Genesis Sale" in 2014.



DEVCON-0 took place in Berlin, Germany in 2014.



Frontier was the first live release of the blockchain in the summer of 2015.



DEVCON1 took place at the Gibson Hall in London, UK in 2015.



Homestead was the first production ready release and the first hard fork.



The drama of The DAO occurred in the summer of 2016.



DEVCON2 took place at the Hyatt on the Bund in Shanghai, China.



Two further hard forks to resolve the persistent DoS attacks in autumn 2016.



Interest from institutional investors and global corporate enterprises.



A market capitalisation surge in late winter 2016/17.