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See the past，present and be the future yourself（回溯过去，看见现在，参与未来）

Vitalik Buterin Founder of Ethereum（以太坊创始人）

WhenIfirst discovered blockchain technology through Bitcoin in 2011，it took some time for me to realize the full potential.Like many others at the time，the aspect that stood out to me the most was Bitcoin the currency-acurrency whichIinitially rejected as doomed to failure，as it was not backed by anything and had no underlying value.After hearing about it againafew weeks later，I realized that there was genuine potential，and soIstarted actively exploring，reading，earning，spending，and writing about Bitcoin.However，it took until visiting the blockchain community in Israel in late 2013 beforeIsaw the fundamental truth that would eventually guide me to creating Ethereum:it was Bitcoin's underlying technology，the blockchain，that was the larger story，and it has applications that stretch far beyond peer-to-peer currency.Crowdfunding，insurance，financial contracts，identity management，supply chains，land registries and many more applications could be affected，and someone，somewhere comes up withanew way that blockchain technology can improve our lives every week.

（当我在2011年第一次通过比特币发现了它背后的区块链技术时，我花了一些时间才意识到它的潜力。就像那时候的许多其他人一样，起初出现在我眼前的是作为“货币”的比特币，一种被我认定为必然失败的货币，因为它没有任何内在价值。但是，几周以后，我意识到它具有的真实潜力，也因此我开始积极地探索、阅读、编写、获取和消费比特币及它所相关的一切。然而，直到我2013年在以色列访问了区块链社区，我才看到了最终指引我走向创造以太坊的根本性真相：比特币的底层技术——区块链，有着更为广阔的未来，并且有着远远超出点对点货币的大量应用场景。众筹、保险、金融合约、身份管理、供应链、土地登记，以及除此之外更大更多的用武之地，而地球上每周都有人在某些地方创造出了新的区块链应用场景，来提升我们生活的品质。）

Decentralization and cryptography，two fundamental building blocks of Bitcoin and Ethereum-like systems，are not new.Decentralized networks such as BitTorrent have existed since the early 2000s，and cryptographers，mathematicians and software engineers have been working on increasingly advanced protocols in order to get stronger and stronger privacy and authenticity guarantees out of various systems，ranging from electronic cash to voting to file transfer and storage，for the last thirty