Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin is the World’s Youngest Crypto Billionaire

Ethereum’s co-creator Vitalik Buterin has become the world’s youngest crypto billionaire at the age of 27. Buterin led the launch of the Ethereum blockchain in 2015.

Ethereum’s value rose above $3,000 for the first time early Monday morning, marking a 325% rise since the beginning of this year.

Buterin’s main ether wallet currently holds ether 333,520 ETH, worth $1.09 billion at the ether price of $3,278 at 1:30 p.m. ET on Monday.

Ether cryptocurrency’s market capitalization is valued at $376 billion, second only to bitcoin’s $1.08 trillion. Ether’s value has surged since the beginning of the year, largely due to the rising popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications that are aiming to replace traditional financial intermediaries like banks and insurance companies. According to the data aggregator DeFi Pulse, over $72 billion is now locked in DeFi protocols, many of which are built on top of the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum is however facing fierce competition from Binance Smart Chain (BSC), the blockchain infrastructure developed by the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which has been processing an average of more than 8 million transactions daily since late April (Ethereum is just over 1 million). Other prominent blockchains include Algorand, Cardano, Polkadot, and Solana.