Nick Szabo

Nicholas Szabo isa computer scientist, legal scholar, and cryptographerknown for his work in digital contracts and digital currency. He isthe creator of the concept of "smart contracts,"which are digital protocols that allow for the automatic execution of contractual terms. He developed the idea with the goal of bringing the highly evolved practices of contract law and practice to the design of electronic commerce protocols between strangers on the internet. Szabo graduated from theUniversity of Washingtonin 1989 with a degree in computer science andreceived a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University Law School.

Szabo designed a mechanism for a decentralized digital currency called "bit gold" in 1998. In his bit gold structure, a participant would dedicate computer power to solving cryptographic puzzles, and solved puzzles would be sent to the Byzantine fault-tolerant public registry and assigned to the public key of the solver. Each solution would become part of the next challenge, creating a growing chain of new property. This aspect of the system provided a way for the network to verify and time-stamp new coins.

There has been speculation that Szabo is the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, butSzabo has repeatedly denied it. In a 2014 email to financial author Dominic Frisby, Szabo said, "I'm afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I'm used to it."