2015 · Smart Contract / DeFi Era · Ethereum

Zephyr Cole

He didn't just want to be money. He wanted to be the place where every deal in the world gets made.

Zephyr Cole

Museum objects

1 shown · 4 cited but not shown. An image only appears here if it is openly licensed and confirmed to depict the object we claim. Otherwise we cite it and link you to the museum — we would rather show you nothing than show you the wrong thing.

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Ethereum whitepaper, Nov 2013
Ethereum Foundation
no openly-licensed image yet — cited, not shown
View it at the museum ↗

Ethereum Whitepaper (Official)

Ethereum Foundation · Ethereum whitepaper, Nov 2013 · November 2013
The founding whitepaper written by a then-19-year-old Vitalik Buterin, proposing a blockchain that could run programmable 'smart contracts,' not just move currency.
Zephyr was never content just being money — this document is the moment a teenager decided currency should be able to think, negotiate, and build entire economies on top of itself.
open licenceEthereum Foundation — CC BY 4.0 for website view at museum ↗
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Devcon 0, Nov 2014
Ethereum Foundation Archive
no openly-licensed image yet — cited, not shown
View it at the museum ↗

Devcon 0 Archive (Berlin, November 2014)

Ethereum Foundation Archive · Devcon 0, Nov 2014 · November 2014
Footage and records from Ethereum's first-ever developer conference, held in Berlin, including Gavin Wood's welcome address before the network had even launched.
This is Zephyr's first public gathering — a room full of strangers betting on an idea that didn't technically exist yet.
open licenceEthereum Foundation blog — CC BY 4.0. view at museum ↗
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Hard fork completed, block 1,920,000
Ethereum Foundation
no openly-licensed image yet — cited, not shown
View it at the museum ↗

'Hard Fork Completed' Blog Post — The DAO Crisis

Ethereum Foundation · Hard fork completed, block 1,920,000 · July 20, 2016
Official Ethereum Foundation announcement confirming the controversial hard fork executed at block 1,920,000 to reverse The DAO hack, which had drained 3.64 million ETH.
This is Zephyr's identity crisis laid bare — when code got hacked for $50-60 million, the community broke in two over whether rules should ever bend, even to fix a theft.
open licenceEthereum Foundation blog — CC BY 4.0. view at museum ↗
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The Merge, Sept 15 2022
Ethereum Foundation
no openly-licensed image yet — cited, not shown
View it at the museum ↗

The Merge Announcement

Ethereum Foundation · The Merge, Sept 15 2022 · September 15, 2022
Official record of Ethereum's transition from energy-intensive proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, cutting energy consumption by 99.95%.
After years of being criticized for burning electricity like an old furnace, Zephyr rebuilt his own engine mid-flight and came out cleaner than anyone thought possible.
open licenceEthereum Foundation — CC BY 4.0 for website view at museum ↗
Vitalik Buterin, TechCrunch London 2015 (Photograph)

Vitalik Buterin, TechCrunch London 2015 (Photograph)

Wikimedia Commons (TechCrunch/Flickr sourced) · Vitalik Buterin TechCrunch London 2015 (cropped) · 2015
A photograph of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin at a TechCrunch conference in London, taken shortly after Ethereum's mainnet launch.
This is the only face anyone ever really associates with Zephyr — a 21-year-old who looked far too young to be reinventing what money could do.
Image: Wikimedia Commons (TechCrunch/Flickr sourced) · source · CC BY 2.0 (verify exact file page license)
open licencePer-file — CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA, or Public D view at museum ↗

Primary sources

The documents themselves. We link and quote — that is citation, and it needs no licence.

Where this money travelled

Zephyr was conceived on internet forums, formally introduced to developers in Berlin, launched globally, and now operates through a foundation based in Switzerland.

Berlin, Germany (Devcon 0)52.5200, 13.4050
Zug, Switzerland (Ethereum Foundation)47.1662, 8.5155
Global Mainnet Network ('Frontier')0.0000, 0.0000
Bogotá, Colombia (Devcon VI, 2022)4.7110, -74.0721
Bangkok, Thailand (Devcon SEA, 2024)13.7563, 100.5018

What we don't know

The page no competitor will build.

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