OpenZeppelin is the industry standard for smart contract security. Founded in 2017, it provides open-source contract libraries, security audits, and the Defender monitoring platform, with $50M+ raised.
Hardhat is the most popular smart contract development environment in the Ethereum ecosystem. Founded in 2019 by Patricio Palladino and Franco Zeoli in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and open-sourced under the Nomic Foundation.
Ethereum is the first general-purpose smart contract platform, launched in 2015 and founded by Vitalik Buterin, with ETH as its native cryptocurrency. After shifting to Proof-of-Stake in 2022, energy use fell 99.9% and its Layer 2 ecosystem powers Web3 and on-chain payments.