The fortune of 27-year-old Vitalik Buterin is estimated today to be at least one billion US dollars. He is one of the reasons for the cryptocurrency Ethereum. It all started in 2009 when Blizzard dared to remove a spell of his Warlock in World of Warcraft.
How rich is Vitalik Buterin? On May 4, 2021, the site “Moneycontrol” named the 27-year-old the youngest “crypto billionaire”. The currency Ethereum rose to $3,000 that day, a value increase of 365% within a year. Buterin holds over 333,000 units of the cryptocurrency he conceived in 2013 and which went live in 2015.
Other sources estimate his fortune today to be up to 21 billion US dollars, as he is said to allegedly own huge amounts of the cryptocurrency “Shiba Inu” (via celybritynetworth).
In any case, Buterin is extremely wealthy.
Warlock nerf in WoW when he was 15 triggered a life crisis
What does WoW have to do with it? Buterin explains in a biographical text (via about.me):
I was born in 1994 in Russia, came to Canada in 2000, where I went to school. I happily played World of Warcraft from 2007 to 2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage part of my favorite Warlock spell “Siphon Life”.
I cried myself to sleep that night and understood that day what horrors a centralized service can bring. I decided to quit.
The traumatic experience of the WoW nerf led him to discover Bitcoin cryptocurrency, develop an enthusiasm for the crypto market, and ultimately, just a few years later, create Ethereum.
The WoW nerf apparently served as inspiration for wanting to be independent of external influences: Just as cryptocurrency escapes the control of states, he would have probably wished for his Warlock to escape Blizzard’s control.
Blizzard eased the rotation of the “Dot-Lock” in 2009
What kind of nerf was that? The spell “Siphon Life” is a “damage-over-time” spell of the Warlock: The opponent loses life, and the caster regains that life.
With the WoW Patch 3.1.0, “Siphon Life” disappeared from the MMORPG on April 14, 2009. At that time, the spell drained health points from the opponent every 3 seconds and added them to the caster.
With Patch 3.1.0, the ability to heal oneself was transferred to the Warlock spell “Corruption”, which healed 40% of its damage.
What was behind it: The removal of Siphon Life was an idea from Blizzard to make the “Dot-Lock” less passive: Its rotation at that time, in Blizzard’s eyes, consisted of too many dots. By making Siphon Life part of Corruption, Blizzard aimed to make the “Affliction Warlock” less of a pure dot thrower and make him more active.
Occasionally, Dotlocks should be able to cast an active spell like Shadow Bolt to feel more like a cool mage or a “Destro-Lock”.
As a side effect, Blizzard created a billionaire.
Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoins are a world of their own:
Man has two attempts left to access 222 million € in Bitcoin
