These days, when someone mentions “cryptography,” they may immediately begin thinking about Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. It wasn’t always like that. Several decades ago, the concept of cryptography was regulated to the military/spy world. Technically, cryptography can be traced back to ancient Egypt.
The founding fathers of cryptocurrency borrowed some of the principles of the cypherpunks movement: anonymity, resistance to censorship, and communication privacy. The movement gained traction in the late 1980s and 1990s.
While this is by no means an exhaustive list of everyone who contributed to the crypto sector as we know it, here are five founding fathers of cryptocurrency.
Satoshi Nakomoto
Of course, we have to have the inventor of Bitcoin on the list. To this day, the world still isn’t sure whether Satoshi is a man, woman, group of people, or a government agency. Whoever they are, Satoshi Nakomoto reportedly began working on Bitcoin in 2007. In January 2009, Bitcoin (version 0.1) was launched.
Nakomoto continued to work on Bitcoin until 2010. While there have been many various theories regarding their identity, the true identity of Satoshi has never been confirmed.
Vitalik Buterin
No list of the founding fathers of cryptocurrency would be complete without Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum and the publisher of the Ethereum whitepaper. The whitepaper was published in late 2013.
Before Vitalik helped create Ethereum, he was already interested in cryptography. He even wrote briefly for a publication called Bitcoin Magazine where he earned Bitcoin weekly. Buterin remains one of the most influential figures in the cryptocurrency world.
Nick Szabo
Nick Szabo has been well-known in the cryptography world for decades, but he’s also a computer scientist and a legal scholar. One of Szabo’s crowning achievements is the fact that he put forward the concept of “smart contracts” back in 1997.
Szabo designed a mechanism for a digital currency called “Bit Gold” where cryptography was involved to verify and time-stamp transactions. The project was never completed. Many in the cryptocurrency and cryptography space consider Bit Gold to be Bitcoin’s true precursor.
Obviously, this similarity to the concept of Bitcoin has led many – even Elon Musk – to believe that Szabo is the real Satoshi Nakomoto. He denies this claim but is remembered as one of the first people to attempt to create a decentralized digital currency.
Hal Finney
You might recognize the above names even if you’re new to crypto, but you probably don’t know about Hal Finney. Finney was a computer scientist and video game developer known for his cryptography activism. In 2004, he even created the world’s first reusable proof-of-work, or RPOW system… before Satoshi!
Hal Finney worked on Bitcoin, along with Satosh Nakomotoi, and even became Bitcoin’s first official recipient in 2009 (thanks to Satoshi). In an infamous 2009 tweet, Hal declared he was “running Bitcoin.” While he has been accused of being Nakomoto, Finney has repeatedly denied the claim.
Finney was also a part of — you guessed it — the cypherpunks movement, and subscribed to their mailing list. Unfortunately, Finney passed away in 2014. While he may not be with us today, his work is invaluable to the crypto world. RIP Hal. Recently, one of the predictions he made has aged quite well in 2022.
David Chaum
Okay, okay… there’s a good chance you knew about the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin before you even clicked on this article. But what about the “founding father” of blockchain? That honor might belong to none other than David Chaum, who first put forward a blockchain proposal back in his 1982 dissertation. He’s also considered a cypherpunk pioneer.
David Chaum was not only familiar with cryptography, but he is also widely believed to be one of the best cryptographers who ever lived. Chaum was also an entrepreneur, and his company Digicash created the first form of digital currency (called eCash). Chaum also founded xx network, a blockchain-based platform focused on private and decentralized messaging.
What did we learn from the founding fathers of cryptocurrency?
It’s crazy to think it only took a handful of people to help create crypto markets that are now worth trillions of dollars. While there is no shortage of cryptocurrency critics out there, many crypto enthusiasts would agree it was the passion and hard work of these individuals that helped shape the sector.
It’s also important to note that many early adopters and advocates helped spread the word about cryptocurrency, which enabled it to go mainstream eventually. It’s impossible to tell where crypto goes from here, especially with the rise of DeFi, NFTs, Web 3.0, and the metaverse.
One thing is for sure: history will likely never forget these founding fathers of cryptocurrency. Without cryptography and the rise of the cypherpunks movement; there’s a good chance you wouldn’t be able to invest in cryptocurrency today.
About the Author
Michael Hearne
About Decentral Publishing
Decentral Publishing is dedicated to producing content through our blog, eBooks, and docu-series to help our readers deepen their knowledge of cryptocurrency and related topics. Do you have a fresh perspective or any other topics worth discussing? Keep the conversation going with us online at: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
