Vitalik Barterin, the original creator of Ethereum Blockchain, is one of the most recognizable figures in the cryptocurrency industry. He is often admired in the ecosystem of being very technical, while also deeply philosophically about the role of technology in society. For those who do not follow crypto closely, butterin sharply contrasts the stereotypical image of a flashy cryptocurrency billionaire with his minimalism in his personal style as well as his nerd and awkward manners.

The documentary “Vitalik: An Ethereum History”, ready for global release April 15, tries to give us a look into these aspects of butterin, after his early life and childhood in Russia, followed by immigrat with his family to Toronto, Canada, where his love for computers and technology began in his high school year.

At the essence of Barterin’s life was the creation of Ethereum, which came after his early commitment to Toronto’s Bitcoin community, where he saw the potential of the asset to give people some financial freedom. While he was thinking how he could apply these concepts to other aspects of life, butterin began writing a whitepaper to create the blockchain version of the Internet.

Toronto has strong ties to Ethereum’s early days. It was home to some of the first Ethereum developer Hackathons and meetings organized by Ethereum’s Canadian co-founders in the city.

This year, Coindesk’s Consensus 2025 takes place in Toronto 14-16. May and highlights Canada’s lively crypto community.

The film goes through the various phases of Ethereum’s lifetime, including the start of the network and the battles Butein faced in its new leadership role, Boom of the Blockchain in the NFT era, the importance of merging to reduce Ethereum’s energy consumption and Butterin’s urge to help Ukraine in his war with Russia by implementing crypto for resources.

Coindesk joined the producers of the documentary, Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, to hear about their perspectives on creating the film, in front of his global release.

This interview has been edited for briefness and clarity.

Coindesk: Why would you make a documentary about Ethereum?

Zach Ingrasci [ZI]: So Chris and I have been making documentaries together for 15 years now. We make character -driven documentaries. So I really love the human stories that give us insight into people’s feelings and motivations in really interesting places.

We are not crypto experts. We studied both finances so we have a little understanding of financing. But when we met Vitalik in 2021, I think he immediately clicked on something in our brains like, “Oh, here’s a story, the kind of breaks the stereotypes that the mainstream audience has of this space.”

Soon after meeting Vitalik we made an NFT crowdfund for the movie at Mirror.xyz, PeoplePleaser did NFT. We basically traveled the full budget of the film, and it enabled us to create this independent story and approach to following Vitalik around the world as he lives out of a 40 liter backpack

How did guys determine what parts of Ethereum’s history should be included in Vitalik’s history? A remarkable moment that I thought was interesting that you omitted was not to include DAO HACK 2016? Why exclude the central moment of Ethereum’s story but leave in other moments?

ZI: This is the challenge of making these movies. We had a very broad mandate after society, not only focused on Vitalik. And then after two years of filming, we realized that that kind of narrative structure would only make sense if you were able to follow a person and then come to meet the community through his eyes.

The DAO hack is very confusing to explain, and therefore there is an element of what the essence is important. And I think you know the moment of Vitalik to decide whether the Ethereum Foundation would be nonprofit in terms of profit is a very understandable concept for a mainstream audience. They get it.

As you mentioned, there was the premiere a few months ago and it was only available to people on chain. If the film is aimed at a mainstream audience, why first decide to release the on-chain instead of a streaming platform where more of these people can access it?

ZI: It’s a practical answer. The documentary industry is broken, so having an independent film premiere of a mainstream platform doesn’t even matter unless you have real marketing. And then, in fact, the on-chain release, NFT, the trailer release at Zora, building sponsorship for this mainstream release is critical.

Chris Temple [CT]: People love the movie and have gathered behind it and been interested and shared it with their mothers, being like, “Hi, that’s what I do for a living.”

This is not just our film, this film belongs to society. And I think authorizing people with it in the first step, and using the technology that the movie was about, felt very right to us.

How did you convince Vitalik of making the movie? He is not very redirected to the media, so how did you make him accept to do it?

ZI: I think we were really lucky in some ways. This was before he was on the front of Time Magazine. I think he was motivated to talk about what he thought Ethereum’s future should look and how to build it and people should focus on building things that have the real world value.

So I think we just met him in the perfect moment when he and the people around him were looking to have access to wider audience.

In the end, I think that’s what makes us Vitalik the perfect participant of a movie because his reluctance to be in the limelight, the real authenticity. You can tell about the movie that he is not trying to hover the limelight. This is something he is uncomfortable with, and something that has taken a long journey for him to even find where his voice is and how it should be.

CT: It was a very challenging production, more than any movie we have ever made because Vitalik is nomadic, he is all over the world and he says, “I will be tomorrow in Montenegro … if you want to come.” We must try to spice up immediately and get everyone there just to get these moments, even if it’s just a few hours of Vitalik.

Recently, there have been a lot of management changes on the EC, and Vitalik has been the essence of making the decision on these changes. The film shows how unpleasant vitalics can be in entering the leadership role and having to make core decisions as if the EC should be a non-profit vs for-profit organization and go against some co-founders.

Given all the most important decisions he had to make in the last few months, and a key leader in Ethereum, what do you think went through his mind, and has he become more comfortable in his leadership role?

ZI: I really can’t speak for Vitalik, but I think that’s why this movie has never been more relevant. Because if we are looking for insight into where Vitalik thinks and what he cares about, I think the thing he cares most about is that Ethereum will be useful in the world.

There is an important quote in the movie about “If Ethereum is used only for speculation, it’s a huge miss.” So it’s not surprising that Vitalik did not go to the White House [to meet with President Trump]. Vitalik is interested in how this tool will be used in the long term for real, positive change in the world. He is uncomfortable with conflict, we know it, we see it in the movie. So I can’t imagine this has been an easy process for him.

But you can certainly tell that he has begun to understand how he uses his voice in this ecosystem and uses his kind of soft force.

Read more: Ethereum Foundation chooses new Co-Executive Directors, for leadership

What was filming in Ukraine at the start of the Russian invasion like? And why does Vitalik feel associated with this case?

ZI: We have some experience filming on the boundaries of war zones. Fortunately, Kiev was relatively safe at the time.

It was really Vitalik’s idea, he always wanted to support the hackers there. Vitalik just felt he could be there to support them, and that’s something he cares so deeply about for two reasons: 1) He actually has Ukrainian ancestry, and 2) from Russia, I think he regrets having met with Putin.

Then there is also just one of the first concrete examples of real positive influence in the world, about how crypto is used when the banking system was in chaos, and then quickly got money for the front lines.

There is a deleted scene where he plays chess with Fedorov, the Ukrainian’s Deputy Prime Minister. But you know Fedorov talked about how 1000s of their military were saved due to $ 100 million Vitalik raised in crypto was quickly mobilized.

What do you hope your audience takes away from this movie?

CT: Documentaries are bad at information, but they are good at provoking questions and getting emotions. If we can inspire an audience to be more knowledgeable and think more critically about technology, not only in these extremes of it all is bad, or it is all good, but to understand a little of the spectrum along the middle there and look at both the positive and negative consequences of technology.

I think that kind of techno optimism is at the heart of what this movie is really about. Help someone using these lessons, whether within crypto, within AI, because technology will just continue to change and influence our lives.

The film is about Vitalik as a person, but also a little about Ethereum’s history. So is Vitalik = Ethereum?

ZI: I don’t think he is and I think that’s what he was hoping for at this time. I hope it comes over in the movie and that’s why we called it one Ethereum history because I think it’s one of many to be told. I think this is where Vitalik has been successful because he is not Ethereum.