In 2013, Vitalik Buterin, a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer, published a white paper proposing Ethereum. He envisioned a more versatile blockchain platform that could support a wider range of applications beyond simple transactions. When the Bitcoin community showed limited interest in adopting his ideas, he decided to create Ethereum, which launched in 2015. Ethereum introduced smart contracts, which are self-executing contracts with the terms directly written into code, enabling decentralized applications (DApps) and revolutionizing the blockchain space.