The price of cryptocurrency Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) soared over 21% in the last week and is now up over 40% in the past month. With a market capitalization of $430 billion, Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency.
What if I told you Ethereum almost didn't exist? In fact, if not for a small change in a video game, we might not have Ethereum today.
What Happened: Many are familiar with the butterfly effect thanks to a movie by the same name. The butterfly effect is an idea that small events can have non-linear impacts on a complex level. A small change made in a popular video game led to the creation of one of the most valuable and most popular cryptocurrencies of all time.
A small change to a character in World of Warcraft, the popular game from Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), had a big impact on cryptocurrency and the creation of non-fungible tokens.
Changes made by World of Warcraft over a spell used by the Warlock character made it less effective by changing the rules. This is known as nerf in the gaming world.
"I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007-2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage component from my beloved warlock's Siphon Life spell," Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin says on his official blog. "I cried myself to sleep and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring. I soon decided to quit."
Read Also: If You Invested $1,000 In Ethereum At Launch, Here’s How Much You’d Have Today
Why It's Important: After he stopped playing World of Warcraft, Buterin became heavily interested in cryptocurrency and Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). Buterin wrote for several Bitcoin focused media outlets and became a voice in the cryptocurrency sector.
Buterin wrote for Bitcoin Weekly and later co-founded Bitcoin Magazine. He dropped out of university to focus on cryptocurrency after obtaining a $100,000 grant from the popular Thiel Foundation, created by Peter Thiel.
"I went around the world, explored many crypto projects and finally realized that they were all too concerned about specific applications and not being sufficiently general – hence the birth of Ethereum, which has been taking up my life ever since."
Buterin created the idea for Ethereum in 2013 and the cryptocurrency was launched on July 30, 2015.
It's pretty unreal to think that a simple change in World of Warcraft led to Buterin getting so heavily involved in the world of cryptocurrency.
Without the change made by Blizzard, there might not be Ethereum or non-fungible tokens in the world today.
Ethereum trades at $3,565.75 at the time of writing versus a 52-week trading range of $1,386.80 to $4,106.96. Ethereum hit an all-time high of $4,891.70 in November 2021.
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This article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated.
Photo: Shutterstock
