Early Days of Ethereum

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Stephan Tual

Stephan Tual

CCO, London meetup founder, Slock.it co-founder

(Jan 2014 to Sep 2015)

DEVCON0 self-introduction

Stephan Tual DEVCON0 introduction

Stephan Tual served as Ethereum's Chief Communications Officer (CCO) from January 2014 to September 2015, leading adoption and education efforts. He founded the London Ethereum meetup and led the UK ÐΞV hub. After leaving the Foundation, he co-founded Slock.it with Christoph Jentzsch and Simon Jentzsch.

Role at Ethereum

Stephan described his responsibilities in his first community update (November 2014):

"Hi, I'm Stephan Tual, and I've been responsible for Ethereum's adoption and education since January as CCO. I'm also leading our UK ÐΞV hub, located at Co-Work in Putney (South West London)."

He led the communications team, which included [REDACTED], George Hallam, and Ken Kappler.

Discovering Ethereum

Stephan recalled the moment he first encountered the Ethereum white paper:

"The feeling of excitement about what 'could be' when I first read Vitalik Buterin's whitepaper on that fateful Christmas afternoon is now shared by dozens of thousands of technologists, developers and entrepreneurs."

Community Building

Under Stephan's leadership, the Ethereum community grew rapidly. By November 2014, there were over 85 Ethereum meetups and hackathons worldwide with more than 6,000 members. He and Vitalik Buterin gave presentations at Cambridge University, and Ethereum participated in the Hackathon on Transparency at the University of Geneva.

The Red Wedding

During the "Red Wedding" in June 2014, Stephan was appointed to a leadership position alongside Taylor Gerring after Charles Hoskinson and Amir Chetrit were removed. Taylor recalled:

"I like to think that by choosing to put Stephan and myself in place in leadership positions and asking Amir and Charles to move on to other things, I feel like we had the team in place to actually get Ethereum delivered." — Taylor Gerring

Vision for Ethereum

Stephan was a passionate advocate for Ethereum's potential to transform society. He wrote:

"Thanks to the Ether sale, a group of smart, hardworking individuals is now able to work full time on solving core technical and adoption challenges… By democratizing access to programmable blockchain technology, Ethereum empowers software developers and entrepreneurs to make a major impact on not only the decentralisation of the economy, but also social structures, voting mechanisms and so much more."

Departure

Stephan left Ethereum in September 2015. In his farewell message, he articulated his philosophy:

"You often heard me say at conferences that Ethereum was not a company, a foundation, an implementation, or an individual. Ethereum is both an idea and an ideal, encompassing the first censorship-resistant network build specifically to enable those who need it the most to safely trade, privately self-organise and freely communicate, rather than relying on the crippled walled garden handed out by the powers that be."

"I want to thank each and everyone of you for your incredible enthusiasm and passion, helping pioneer what I believe is the most significant piece of software concept the world has ever seen."

Slock.it and The DAO

After leaving the Foundation, Stephan co-founded Slock.it with Christoph and Simon Jentzsch. The company created The DAO, which became one of the most significant events in Ethereum's history.

Photo of Gav Wood and Stephan Tual at Ethereum London Meetup, June 16, 2017
Photo from Bob Summerwill's tweet of Gav Wood and Stephan Tual at the Ethereum London Meetup, June 16, 2017.

Epicenter Interview

In April 2014, Stephan appeared alongside Max Kaye on Epicenter Bitcoin to discuss Ethereum and decentralized applications:

https://epicenter.tv/episodes/016
Max Kaye & Stephan Tual: Ethereum and Decentralized Applications
https://epicenter.tv
April 21, 2014

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