Ethersphere was a GitHub organization created by Viktor Trón that served as the collaborative home for Swarm development. It was one of the first Ethereum-related "brands," alongside Eris Industries (which later became Monax).
Origins
Viktor Trón registered Ethersphere as a GitHub organization on March 14, 2014. In his Early Days of Ethereum interview, Viktor described it as somewhat aspirational:
"Well, it's kind of, it was wishful thinking that it might be Ethersphere but on the other hand I kind of, I did register that as an organization on GitHub at least and even I think it was pretty much one of the first Ethereum related brands in a way."
The organization became the working home for the Budapest-based team developing Swarm, with code being committed through Ethersphere to the Ethereum codebase:
"So Ethersphere was the home of maybe most of our work and then we kind of committing through that to the Ethereum code base."
Team
The core Ethersphere team consisted of:
- Viktor Trón - Second to join Jeff Wilcke's Amsterdam team (after Alex van de Sande), hired in late 2014
- Daniel Nagy - Contractor for ETHDEV from October 2014, brought the original Swarm concepts
- Zsolt Felföldi - Joined in 2015 to work on the light client
Viktor noted that while he and Daniel were both at DEVCON0, Zsolt joined later: "And later Zsolt Felföldi, like already hired to work on the light client. I think it was in 2015 already."
Legacy
Ethersphere was never a formal legal entity - it functioned as a GitHub organization and informal collaborative umbrella. When Swarm eventually spun out from the Ethereum Foundation in 2019-2021, it became the Swarm Association, a formal organization based in Switzerland.
The Ethersphere GitHub organization remains active today as the home of Swarm development, including the Bee client.
Primary Source
This article draws from Viktor Trón's Early Days of Ethereum interview, which provides first-hand accounts of Ethersphere's creation and role.