Learn about little-known facts about Ethereum, the world's second-largest blockchain network powering nearly 6,000 DApps, DeFi protocols, and NFT marketplaces, with a market capitalization of $198 billion.

Ethereum, with a market capitalization of $198 billion, is the second largest blockchain network globally, serving as the underlying infrastructure for numerous decentralized applications (DApps), cryptocurrency trading platforms, DeFi protocols, and NFT marketplaces, boasting nearly 6,000 DApps.

Notwithstanding its widespread recognition, Ethereum harbors several intricate aspects that remain largely unknown to the general public. Join us as we delve into these lesser-known facts, providing you with a deeper comprehension of the world's pioneer smart contract network.

Ethereum was crowdfunded.
The Ethereum network was conceived by Vitalik Buterin, who authored the platform's whitepaper in 2013. However, due to a lack of funds, Buterin had to seek financing to commence development. Rather than seeking out venture capital firms, he and his co-founders opted for crowdfunding, a popular means of financing among artists and social entrepreneurship projects at the time. The crowdfunding campaign was a resounding success, with Buterin securing the necessary funds within two months (July and August 2014), and the Ethereum project was ultimately launched on 30 July 2015.

The test networks were named after subway stations.
Testnets are secondary blockchain networks utilized to test modifications and upgrades before they are implemented on the primary network. Ethereum, for instance, maintains five testnets, namely Sepolia, Goerli, Ropsten, Rinkeby, and Kovan, each named after train and subway stations worldwide. Specifically, Kovan is an MRT station located in Singapore, Rinkeby and Ropsten are stations on the blue and red lines of the Stockholm metro, Sepolia is a stop on the Athens Metro Line 2, and Goerli was named after a train station in Berlin.

Ethereum can be divided up to 18 decimal places.
Upon its launch in 2015, Ethereum's native digital currency, Ether (ETH), traded for a fraction of a dollar. However, nearly a decade later, the value of 1 ETH has surpassed $1,600, though it remains significantly lower than its peak value of over $4,800.

Given the notable growth of the token in recent years, it appears that owning even a single unit of Ether (ETH) may be unattainable for many investors in the future. To address this concern, the development team has enabled ETH to be divisible by up to 18 decimal points, allowing for greater flexibility in the token's usage and investment.

The implementation of this feature guarantees that users will be able to acquire a portion of a coin even if prices increase in the future. The smallest unit of Ether is referred to as a gwei, with 1 ETH being equivalent to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 gwei.

Ethereum's present form is not its original state.
The contemporary incarnation of Ethereum, which emerged in 2016, was created through a hard fork. Its precursor, Ethereum Classic, persists to this day. The protocol's division resulted from a breach in the security systems of a venture capital firm named the DAO, which provided investment opportunities for Ethereum's stakeholders. Despite gathering over $150 million in funding through ETH, the DAO suffered a hack that exploited weaknesses in its underlying code.

Subsequent to the cyberattack, the Ethereum community became bifurcated into two factions. A minor faction of developers and miners argued that the investors of DAO should be held accountable for investing in a flawed enterprise. On the other hand, a substantial group advocated for the implementation of a blockchain rollback, therefore generating a protective mechanism for DAO investors.

In an exceedingly debated resolution, Ethereum underwent a hard fork that aimed to recover all the stolen funds. A group who dissented from the alteration to Ethereum's protocol adhered to the former Ethereum blockchain, which was thereafter renamed Ethereum Classic.

The blockchain that resulted from the hard fork was referred to as Ethereum, and it gained a more substantial following than its antecedent. The currency Ethereum Classic has a predetermined cap on the total number of tokens, whereas Ethereum's supply is unconstrained.

A single co-founder presently works on the platform in a direct capacity
At the genesis of Ethereum, there existed a roster of eight co-founders comprising Vitalik Buterin, Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Iorio, Amir Chetrit, Charles Hoskinson (the initial five Ethereum co-founders), Gavin Wood, Jeffrey Wilcke, and Joseph Lubin. Regrettably, nowadays, only Buterin continues to contribute to the Ethereum blockchain. Hoskinson and Wood, respectively, established new blockchain networks, Cardano and Polkadot, both viewed as Ethereum's competitors. Anthony Di Iorio stepped down from his blockchain-focused software company Decentral, located in Toronto, last year, attributable to his concern about personal security risks. The other co-founders have moved on to disparate industries.