First there was bitcoin, now there's ethereum.The cryptocurrency, along with its associated blockchain software platform, has gained popularity recently and is considered an alternative to bitcoin.Ethereum is up 4,100 percent year to date, CNBC reports, and made headlines this week when its price plummeted from $319 to just 10 cents in seconds.But what people may not realize is that ethereum's founder, Vitalik Buterin, is only 23 years old.Buterin has become a celebrity in the cryptocurrency space and is credited with co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011.He has more than 90,000 Twitter followers and posts frequently about the industry's latest news.He was a 2014 recipient of billionaire Peter Thiel's prestigious fellowship and last year, he was included on Fortune's 40 under 40 list.Here's a little history on the founder: Buterin was born in Moscow, according to a feature by Wired's Backchannel last year.At 6 years old, he moved with his family to Canada.He was considered a math genius from an early age and was placed in a gifted program in the third grade, the publication reports.

Buterin reportedly first grew interested in bitcoin when his father introduced him to the concept, and he soon became an expert in the emerging field.In 2011, he launched the cryptocurrency's eponymous magazine.bitcoin sha-3In May 2013, the 19-year-old programmer traveled to California to a cryptocurrency conference led by the Winklevoss twins.wts bitcoinAccording to Backchannel: Veterans of the dotcom era drew comparisons between cryptocurrencies and the dawn of the Internet.diamond circle bitcoinBooths showed off new hardware wallets, merchant payment platforms, and Bitcoin ATMs.ethereum hashrate calculatorAnd Buterin witnessed it all as a representative of Bitcoin Magazine.bitcoin news coindesk

The San Jose event was Buterin's first glimpse at the living, breathing community cropping up around the cryptocurrency economy."That moment really crystallized it for me," he tells the publication about the experience.bitcoin investor hub"It really convinced me that, 'Hey, this thing's real and it's worth taking a risk and jumping into.'ethereal credit farming wowButerin dropped out of the University of Waterloo and spent the rest of the year traveling around the world visiting with individuals working on bitcoin, according to Backchannel.bitcoin exchange escrowUpon returning home to Toronto, Buterin began developing ethereum, and wrote a white paper on his findings.bitcoin ncrThe idea took off: In June 2014, Buterin was awarded a $100,000 Peter Thiel Fellowship for his work.

Buterin helped launch the Ethereum Foundation to begin researching the cryptocurrency and announced the sale of ethereum in a blog post that same year.A beta version of the ethereum platform was released in mid-2015."When I came up with Ethereum, my first first thought was, okay this thing is too good to be true," Buterin tells Backchannel."As it turned out, the core Ethereum idea was good, fundamentally, completely, sound."And one day, it could be even bigger than bitcoin.See also: Jack Ma: This is what to study if you want a high-paying job in the futureWhile the world marvels at the seemingly unstoppable growth of digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin, its closest rival, Ethereum, has enjoyed an even more unbelievable rise in 2017.Spurred on in part by investors' unshakeable belief in Bitcoin, Ethereum – which currently ranks as the world's second largest cryptocurrency in terms of market value – has actually outperformed Bitcoin in growth in 2017, this week reaching an incredible 2,367 percent gain in value since the beginning of the year, before dropping slightly.

At time of writing, the Ethereum token, ether, was worth US$178.48, yielding a massive gain in its value since January 1, when it fetched just $8.24 less than five months ago.Unlike Bitcoin, which operates on a different kind of blockchain software, and is mainly used as a payment technology, Ethereum works by performing what are called "smart contracts" – apps that execute contracts based on certain conditions being met.The broad flexibility of the concept – which enables app developers to build all kinds of decentralised apps on the platform – means the Ethereum blockchain could ultimately prove incredibly disruptive to the way data is handled on the internet.But despite how that sounds, the disruptive prospects haven't scared big business away from Ethereum.One of the reasons the platform has attracted so much interest lately is because major companies keep signing up to the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, an organisation seeking to support and develop the smart contracts software.

Outfits like Microsoft and Intel were launch members of the Alliance, but the list keeps getting bigger, with 86 companies – including Samsung and Merck – joining just this week.While there's definitely a huge amount of interest in Ethereum and ether's amazing growth recently, there are also concerns that the party won't last, with commentators pointing out that cloning of the concept could devalue the ether currency itself."People are buying a specific blockchain, but the big interests are in the technology," Bitcoin trader Jason Hamilton told CNBC."They'll probably make their own clones and the ether tokens everyone is buying won't be used for much except trading... I don't usually trade ether.I'm afraid of that bubble bursting, but it could go on bubbling up for a long time still."It's perhaps unlikely those concerns will be enough to stop Ethereum's recent swelling any time soon though, as the undying growth of Bitcoin just goes to show that the world is mad for cryptocurrencies.