Milestones in Ethereum's History: The Genesis Block

Introduction

This is the third and final part of our series on key milestones in Ethereum's history. In previous posts, we explored the whitepaper and the ICO. Today we focus on a unique moment, perhaps the most symbolic of all: the launch of the network, the genesis block.

Beyond the specific date, we want to share a retrospective view (based on data) of what the ten years since that moment have looked like.

While July 30, 2015, is often marked as "day one" of Ethereum, the story that led to that moment and the paths it opened afterward are what truly give it meaning.

The Immediate Context Before Launch

After the ICO and a series of technical tests, Ethereum went through a final testing phase called Olympic. It was a public experimental network that allowed for early versions of the protocol to be tested, stress-tested, debugged, and used to prepare the community for what was coming: the mainnet.

The name chosen for this first deployment was Frontier. Unlike a "finished" network, Frontier was a basic, functional version designed mainly for developers and technical participants. It was an environment to start experimenting in production, with real contracts, mining, and tokens.

From the start, Ethereum was designed to avoid relying on a central authority to "activate" the network. Instead of a single on-switch, each client on each node would locally generate the first block from a shared file containing the initial state of the network. This was explained in the post "Final Steps" published on July 27, 2015.

Three days later, at 3:26 UTC on July 30, Ethereum went live. Every node that executed the genesis file and began syncing was part of that decentralized launch.

The Genesis Block in Detail

One of the best ways to understand this beginning is to visit block 0 on Etherscan. There, you can see what looks like any other block: a list of 8,893 "transactions" that appear to show activity between accounts. At first glance, it may seem that Ethereum began with thousands of simultaneous operations. But a closer look reveals something more interesting.

What we actually see in that block are not transactions in the traditional sense of the protocol. They were not sent from an account, were not signed, did not use gas, and did not pass through the EVM. They are initial allocations: direct entries in the network state, defined in a file that all nodes shared at launch.

During the ICO, between July and September 2014, thousands of people sent BTC to a designated address. In return, they received a commitment: their corresponding ETH balance would be credited to the network once it launched. And that is exactly what happened. Each of those purchases was registered as an address with an initial balance, incorporated into the genesis block via a script. This file, known as "genesis.json," contained all the allocations and was used by each node to generate the network's first state. It is worth noting the absolute transparency of this preallocation, as the entire ICO had been conducted publicly and was visible on the Bitcoin network.

Etherscan displays those allocations as "transactions" for convenience, making it easier to explore what happened and who received what. But under the hood, there was no processing, no execution, no signatures. Just one large initial snapshot. A kind of zero state, agreed upon by all.

From a technical standpoint:

• No gas was used because there were no operations to execute
• There was no mining, so there were no rewards or fees
• There is no parent block, so the parent hash consists of zeros
• There are no signatures or nonces, since these were not actual transactions

It was not an empty block, nor was it a traditional block. It was something else: a declaration of origin, distributed and enacted by those who chose to sync that day with a new network. Exploring that block is like tracing the footprints of those who took part in the ICO and decided to trust a project just beginning.

If you want to see the exact moment of Ethereum's "birth," you can visit the genesis block on Etherscan. There you will find a transparent record of each address that received ETH that day, how it was assigned, and the network's starting point. If you take the time to explore, you can even see what happened to those genesis wallets. Most were emptied sooner or later. Yet some still hold large amounts of ETH untouched since then. These accounts often make headlines when they move.

A fun fact: the block explorer shows a "block reward" of 5 ETH for the genesis block. It is important to clarify that this does not reflect an actual issuance. It is simply a default value applied automatically by the platform to all blocks. In the genesis block, there was no mining and no reward. No node received ETH for generating it. It was manually created and agreed upon by all nodes, with no associated economic incentive.

The First Signs of Activity

After the genesis block, Ethereum began producing blocks continuously. For several days, the network ran smoothly but without visible activity: no contracts deployed, no ETH transferred, no state changes. Just empty blocks, each fulfilling its role, but with no user interaction.

Browsing through the chain on Etherscan, you can review thousands of these early blocks and confirm they contain no transactions. You can scroll through pages and pages of the block explorer starting from July 30, 2015, and find thousands of blocks with zero transactions. Only later do signed user actions begin to appear.

Now, determining exactly what the first real executed transaction on Ethereum was is not trivial. It requires analyzing thousands of blocks, distinguishing between genesis allocations, failed transactions, internal interactions, or simply mined blocks with no operations. For this reason, pinpointing a "first time" is beyond the scope of this article.

What we can say with confidence is that a week after the genesis block, there were several blocks with at least one transaction. For example, block 46147, mined on August 7, 2015, at 03:30:33 UTC, includes a signed transaction with gas usage and ETH transfer between accounts. This transaction, for instance, represents a complete operation: state change, fee paid, and successful execution. It is worth noting that the gas fee for this transaction was 1.05 ETH, which was just over $2 at the time but would be around $3,700 at the time of writing.

An interesting detail: minutes later, the same user "thanateros.eth" made another transaction that some online users interpret as a pizza purchase. We do not have more information on that, but it is pleasant to imagine that it may have been a tribute to the famous Bitcoin pizza bought by Laszlo Hanyecz in 2010. Clearly, the first users of the network were not only having fun, but also aware that they were making history.

From the moment those first transactions occurred, Ethereum ceased to be just a running technical infrastructure and became an active network. Contracts came soon after. Then tokens, protocols, dApps, and DAOs.

Ten Years Later

Beyond the historical details, which are especially interesting on dates like this, what we find most valuable is the "substance" of the ten years that followed. To highlight that, we will set aside the narrative for a moment and turn to the data, which best illustrate the extraordinary growth and impact of the network:

Ten years of Ethereum have resulted in:

• Over 22 million blocks mined
• Over 320 million unique addresses
• Over 1.6 million tokens deployed
• Over 79 million contracts deployed
• Over 1 million active validators
• Over 13,000 physical nodes
• Over 120 million ETH issued
• Over 4 million ETH burned since EIP-1559
• A 99.95% reduction in energy consumption after the transition to Proof of Stake
• Over $130 billion in TVL
• Over $140 billion in stablecoins
• Over $7 billion in RWAs
• Over $6 billion in strategic ETH reserves
• Thousands of dApps
• 16 protocol upgrades and, most importantly
• 100% uptime since launch

These figures speak for themselves, but they also need perspective. It is not just about volume, but about sustained processes over time. Each number reflects collective effort and infrastructure that was not imposed from above, but adopted, explored, and expanded by thousands of people worldwide. If you are reading this, chances are some of those efforts were yours.

Celebrating Ethereum's 10th Anniversary

At ethereum.org/10years, you will find celebrations organized by communities around the world. The Ethereum Foundation, through its Ecosystem Support Program, has funded a series of grants to support events across the globe. The occasion calls for it.

We invite you to check the list of events and join the global Ethereum community in marking this historic moment.

Closing

Remembering the genesis block is not just about a date. It brings back a way of working, of coordinating, of building decentralized digital infrastructure. Ethereum’s history is not only about cutting-edge technology, but also about human cooperation at remarkable levels.

At ETH Kipu, we believe that foundational spirit remains alive. Not as nostalgia, but as a guiding reference.

Happy 10 years. You are already part of Ethereum’s history. Now let us help build its future.

This is why today, more than ever, we say: Let’s keep connecting the present with Ethereum’s future.