Kriti Mehrotra
If there’s one thing nobody can deny, it’s that Bitcoin has gained a lot of traction across the globe over the past few years, making the enigma surrounding its anonymous founder extremely intriguing. That’s how filmmaker Cullen Hoback came up with the idea of HBO’s ‘Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery’ to delve into this cryptocurrency’s origins and the possibly real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Many actually believe early cryptographer Nicholas “Nick” Szabo to be the mastermind behind this whole incredible digital network, yet he himself has never corroborated the same in any manner.
Nick Szabo’s Early Interests Paved the Way For His Career
Although not much regarding Nick’s early years, familial experiences, or upbringing is public knowledge at the moment, we do know he is of Hungarian descent and is especially proud of that fact. His passions gradually developed too, resulting in him earning a Bachelor’s in computer science from the University of Washington before obtaining a Juris Doctorate from George Washington University Law School. Therefore, with his degrees serving as just a hint of what he can do and his ensuing hard work in the field of digital currency, he was also offered an honorary professorship at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala.
Nick Szabo’s Work Has Often Been Deemed a Precursor of Bitcoin
According to records, it was Nick who developed the whole concept of “smart property” in the world of electronic commerce following the boom of the internet, unaware it would make him one of the faces of the digital movement. That’s especially because while he wrote an introduction to this concept in 1994, he was able to publish a detailed exploration of what they could do within two years in 1996. In other words, he established the idea of smart contracts, proposing a digital marketplace built on automatic, cryptographically secure processes. As if that’s not enough, by the time 1998 rolled around, he had also managed to mechanism for a decentralized digital currency he called “Bit Gold.”
Bit Gold was never implemented, despite it being entirely digital, not requiring any intermediaries, and solving the double-spend problem via proof-of-work because it was susceptible to online attacks. That’s because, as per reports, it relied on a set minimum number of Internet Protocol addresses rather than a set minimum number of computing power to reach a consensus for change. He once said, “The problem, in a nutshell, is that our money currently depends on trust in a third party for its value. As many inflationary and hyperinflationary episodes during the 20th century demonstrated, this is not an ideal state of affairs.”
However, considering the way it set out to be an entirely digital form of currency with a key needed for access, Bit Gold is widely considered one of the major precursors to Bitcoin. After all, while the former was initially conceptualized in 1998, with Nick’s later publishing it on his personal blog Unenumerated, the latter first came to light in October 2008 with its creator Satoshi Nakamoto publishing a paper on the same before creating the network on January 9. Therefore, many have since assumed that Nick is Satoshi Nakamoto owing to their similar concepts, style of work, as well as skillsets, yet this theory has never once been verified and he himself has denied being Satoshi.
Nick Szabo Prefers to Lead a Private Life
Since Nick’s career as a computer scientist, legal scholar, and cryptographer specializing in smart contracts and digital currency has resulted in him receiving a lot of backlash over the years, he actually now prefers to keep everything well away from his personal experiences. This is actually to such an extent he is not active on any social media platforms either, and even his biography on his blog contains nothing but reviews from some of his readers. It’s also imperative to note that the last entry he published on Unenumerated was in 2018, so all we know is that he currently likely resides in Seattle, Washington, alongside his loving wife, Michelle Szabo, and their shared pet, Luna. As for his professional standing, it is believed that despite enjoying his privacy as well as downtime, he often travels all around the world to give lectures on the actuality and benefits of cryptocurrency.
