Historical Timeline

Vitalik creates the Standardized_Contract_APIs directory, including an early token implementation named currency.se written in the Serpent language. This establishes "currency" as his preferred term for a standard token from the outset.

The Ethereum mainnet goes live, creating the live environment where smart contracts could be deployed for the first time. Early documentation on the Ethereum website encouraged users to test smart contracts and "sub-currencies".

Developer 'Caktux' adds a disapprove function concept to the standardization wiki, marking the start of open community collaboration.

Developer 'Simondlr' (Simon de la Rouviere) renames disapprove to unapprove, demonstrating the active debate over API design.

In a key commit, Vitalik Buterin converts the Serpent code to Solidity, creating currency.sol. He reverts the function name to disapprove, solidifying the version that would be deployed. This event marks Solidity's emergence as the preferred language for the standard.

Developer 'rfikki' deploys a hardened version of Vitalik's currency.sol to the Ethereum mainnet at address 0x8494...FD3, making it a live, immutable artifact.

Building on the standardization efforts, the official Mist browser integrated an easy-to-use token generator, abstracting away complex coding for users. A pre-release Developer Preview was released, followed by Beta 1 a few weeks later.

Fabian Vogelsteller and Vitalik Buterin propose EIP-20, explicitly citing the Standardized_Contract_APIs repository as the inspiration and origin, directly linking it to the work on currency.sol.

Fabian Vogelsteller and Vitalik Buterin propose EIP-20, explicitly citing the Standardized_Contract_APIs repository as the inspiration and origin, directly linking it to the work on currency.sol.

This commit introduced a Serpent-based crowdfunding contract that supports contribution limits, conditional refunds or token rewards, and on-demand dividend payouts to token holders. c.disapprove appears in standardized_contract_apis/test.py in this commit.

CurrencyCoin, (formerly "Disapprove Currency") will celebrate a decade on the Ethereum blockchain, quietly persisting through hard forks, protocol upgrades, and the explosive growth of the entire crypto ecosystem. As one of the blockchain’s earliest contracts with direct ties to Vitalik Buterin, its decade-long history offers a rare link to Ethereum’s origin era.