Vitalik Buterin is the Russian-Canadian programmer who co-founded Ethereum in 2015. He envisioned Ethereum as a “world computer” — a decentralized platform where developers could build all kinds of decentralized apps (dApps) using smart contracts. Vitalik remains deeply involved in Ethereum’s development, pushing innovations like sharding and Layer 2 scaling. He’s widely respected in the crypto community and continues to advocate for decentralization, security, and ethical blockchain use.