Internet Computer history: from Zurich to the crash
A lab in Zurich
Dominic Williams founded the DFINITY Foundation in 2016, a non-profit research organisation based in Zurich. He wanted a blockchain that runs entire applications, websites included, instead of only recording payments. The team spent five years on development before launch.
May 2021: the launch
DFINITY made the network’s source code and the ICP token public on 10 May 2021, and Coinbase, Binance and other exchanges listed it on day one. By market cap ICP briefly ranked among the top three crypto assets. Its all-time high of 700.65 dollars dates to that same day on CoinGecko.
Down 95% in two months
By 24 June 2021 ICP traded near 35 dollars, CoinDesk reported. Analytics firm Arkham published a report suggesting insiders had sent large amounts of ICP to exchanges; DFINITY called it “ludicrous”, and investors filed a class-action lawsuit claiming ICP was an unregistered security.
Canisters and neurons
Applications on ICP run as smart contracts called canisters, which store data and serve web pages themselves. The Network Nervous System governs the network: holders lock ICP into “neurons”, vote on upgrades and earn rewards much like staking. The price kept sliding, and on 1 August 2026 it reached an all-time low of 2.00 dollars.