A pivotal moment in the history of blockchain technology occurred when Canadian programmer and co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine Vitalik Buterin published an introductory paper on Ethereum. Buterin proposed Ethereum — a global platform for a "world computer," a public computing infrastructure accessible to all. The goal was to go beyond financial applications and enable dApps in various sectors, including healthcare, supply chain management, and government. The paper also introduced the concept of smart contracts, and proposed a proof-of-work consensus mechanism (later transitioned to proof-of-stake) to maintain network security and governance.