Five founding fathers of cryptocurrency: the bright minds behind digital currency
The founding fathers of cryptocurrency are responsible for the crypto markets as we know them today. What do we know about them?
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.
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.
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.