The history of Bitcoin and the Blockchain is still being written.

In much the same way as it was difficult to fully gauge the impact that the early days of the internet and personal computing would create on society, the impact of digital currencies and the blockchain is still unclear. As the creators and disruptors associated with the internet and the rise of personal computers helped to put a human face along with incredible talent on the revolution that was going on around us, we’re seeing the same from the brave and creative personalities who are playing a role in the spread of Bitcoin and Blockchain technology.

One of these is a young man who has much in common with one of the most powerful and brilliant men from the past era of change. Steve Jobs didn’t create the personal computer; he just made it work the way that people needed it to work. Steve Jobs saw beyond the need for a college degree to chase his dreams in the real world even without a diploma that for most of us holds the key to a job and potential success. Steve Jobs had a way of convincing those around him that the vision that he had was one that was worth getting behind.

Vitalik Buterin may not be a familiar name to those who are not intimately involved with Bitcoin and the Blockchain, but he’s fast becoming THE person that people in this industry are looking towards to point “the way” forward.

At the age of 19, Buterin was a college dropout and Bitcoin enthusiast. His interest in Bitcoin was so strong that before his twentieth birthday, he created Bitcoin Magazine as a way to educate and inform others on this exciting technology that he had discovered and now wanted the whole world to know about.

The Russian-born, Toronto-raised Buterin dropped out of the University of Waterloo after a year of computer science so he could focus on his innovations around virtual currency. He also hoped to land the Thiel Fellowship, which awarded $100,000 to 20 promising innovators under 20 so that can pursue their inventions rather than a college diploma.

He did win the Fellowship and pursued his work with Bitcoin.

Before his twentieth birthday, he had became aware that Bitcoin had shortcomings and he had a way to create an even better technology that could improve on the Bitcoin platform and utilize the power of the Blockchain for a wide range of applications.

This idea was called Ethereum and its current success has led those in the Bitcoin world to chatter among themselves that it may soon be considered the “Apple” of the Blockchain industry. As one writer put it, to Buterin, “Bitcoin is a pretty interesting fish, but (for Buterin) Ethereum is poised to be the entire ocean.”

Buterin created Ethereum as a platform that would more fully utilize the potential and opportunity of the Blockchain and allow it to be used to record and execute any program you can code. This includes capabilities such as voting, financial transactions, and contracts in order to record them and make them widely accessible over a distributed network.

Buterin followed the lead of Satoshi, the creator of Bitcoin and released a white paper that outlined his vision of this new technology.