The Ethereum Foundation was in jeopardy of running out of operating funds just months after the network had launched. The price of bitcoin had steadily declined all through the Ethereum crowdsale, from over $600 at the start of fundraising on July 22, 2014, to almost $500 when it ended forty-two days later. The problem was that all of the money received in the crowdsale had been in bitcoin, except for the share of ether the foundation got from the premine.
