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In this episode of Bitcoin Magazine’s Bitcoin In Asia, some of the godfathers of Bitcoin — Nick Szabo, Adam Back and David Chaum — discuss the history of the technology with host John Riggins. This episode was recorded during a live panel from Seoul at Korea Blockchain Week and is laid out as a history of the ideas and events that led to Bitcoin from their first-person accounts. It also features their current thoughts on the latest experiments in Bitcoin and what excites them about its future.
Szabo is a computer scientist, cryptographer, the designer of BitGold and a smart contracts pioneer. Back is an applied cryptographer with a computer science PhD in distributed systems, the inventor of Hashcash and cofounder and CEO of Blockstream. Chaum is best known for his fundamental innovations in cryptography, including privacy technology and secure election systems, as well as digital cash, and is currently leading Elixxir and Praxxis. Both Back and Chaum are cited in the Bitcoin white paper, while Szabo’s influence has been mentioned by Satoshi on Bitcointalk.org.
From the cryptography and cypherpunk movements to David’s DigiCash, Adam’s Hashcash proof-of-work, Nick’s BitGold and more, their contributions were foundational to the development of Bitcoin, and it was fascinating to have them together and playing off of each other in a discussion of that history.