Vitalik Buterin has beaten Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to win the World Technology Network (WTN) award for IT software.

Buterin, the developer of crypto 2.0 platform Ethereum and co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine, received the honour at the WTN’s 2014 summit held at the Time & Life building in New York City. The event was organised in association with Fortune and Time.

In addition to Ethereum, Buterin has been involved in a number of crypto projects over the years, including Dark Wallet and KryptoKit.

This is not the first time the youthful developer has been rewarded for his efforts, earlier this year Buterin received a $100,000 fellowship from PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

Recognising innovation

Buterin was the only big name in the digital currency industry to win an award at this year’s WTN event. However, a number of familiar names from the world of finance and the tech industry also made it to the roster.

Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk won two awards – one in the Energy category, as the chairman of SolarCity and co-founder of Tesla, and another in the Space category, as the founder of SpaceX.

Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell, the co-founders of Y Combinator, won individual awards in the Finance category. The Corporate Finance award went to 500 Startups. Both companies have previously invested in the bitcoin space.

The World Technology Awards are an annual event with the aim of promoting outstanding innovators in a range of tech industries.

Dozens of prominent industry leaders and companies have received World Technology Awards since the turn of the century, including the likes of Pinterest, Tesla, Skype, Apple, IBM, Amazon and many others – all organisations and individuals that have made their mark in in the world of technology.

Image via Ethereum