Assertion Partly supported AI assessment confidence: 90% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Di Iorio: Ethereum crowdsale raised $18M as largest crowdfunded project

Anthony Di Iorio · 758: The Ex-Stock Exchange Brain Behind Ethereum Blockchain · Aug 21, 2017 · at 15:13

Anthony Di Iorio, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Decentral/Jaxx, discusses how he entered the cryptocurrency sector and funded early blockchain projects.

0:00 / 0:07exact quote · 7.1s

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“I bootstrapped Ethereum Before we did the crowd sale where we raised eighteen million dollars at the time became the largest crowd funded project of all time.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Anthony Di Iorio bootstrapped Ethereum prior to its crowdsale, which raised $18 million and was the largest crowdfunding campaign ever at the time.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The claim bundles three assertions, two of which are historically accurate while one fails. First, records confirm that then-co-founder Anthony Di Iorio provided critical early seed and bootstrap funding (a few hundred thousand dollars) to finance Ethereum's early development and legal setup prior to the crowdsale. Second, Ethereum's 42-day token presale concluded on September 2, 2014, raising 31,531 BTC, which equaled approximately $18.3 million USD. However, the third leg fails: Ethereum was not the largest crowdfunding project of all time when the sale concluded. The video game project Star Citizen had already secured the Guinness World Record for the largest crowdfunded project in March 2014 ($39.7 million) and had surpassed $50 million by August 2014, making Ethereum the second-largest crowdfunded campaign overall (and the largest cryptocurrency crowdsale) at the time.

Di Iorio contributed several hundred thousand dollars in early 2014 to finance early software coding and legal expenses for Ethereum prior to its crowdsale.
Ethereum's genesis crowdsale concluded in September 2014, raising 31,531 BTC (approximately $18.3 million USD).
Star Citizen had already raised over $39.68 million by March 2014 and crossed $50 million in August 2014, holding the record as the largest crowdfunded project of all time when Ethereum's sale completed.

Checked against

[1] forbes.com [2] finst.com [3] scottdclary.com [4] facebook.com [5] ethereum.org [6] cryptopotato.com [7] bmic.ai [8] parade.com

"Guinness World Records" "Star Citizen" "March 2014" Ethereum crowdsale 2014 18 million 31500 BTC largest crowdfunding campaign Anthony Di Iorio bootstrap Ethereum funding initial money Ethereum crowdsale 2014 amount raised bitcoin "Ethereum" "second largest" OR "second-largest" "crowdfund" 2014 largest crowdfunding campaign 2014 Star Citizen Ethereum

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

Anthony Di Iorio Ethereum

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