đđ„ Discover the incredible journey of David Chaum, the man who anticipated the future of digital currency long before the invention of the internet!
1/ Born in 1955, David Chaum is the brilliant mind behind several cryptographic technologies that paved the way for Bitcoin. He even wrote one of the first papers introducing the concept of blockchain... in 1982! đČ
2/ His most famous contribution remains his article on âBlind Signaturesâ, the basis of all e-cash in the 90s. However, Chaum had a different vision from the cypherpunks: he saw his invention as a centralized and commercialized tool đ.
3/ However, there was one cypherpunk who particularly admired Chaum: Hal Finney, the very first user of Bitcoin. He was the one who introduced Chaumâs genius to the cypherpunk community, propelling his work to a new generation â.
4/ Indeed, Hal Finney's most famous quote directly refers to the work of David Chaum. Finney talks about how Chaum paved the way for cypherpunks đ.
5/ So respected, that Tim Berners-Lee invited him to give the keynote speech at the 1st World Wide Web Conference. Chaum performed the first ever online monetary transaction there. A rare video of this moment still exists đ€©.
6/ Chaum predicted an internet where privacy would be seriously compromised. He worried about the erasure of borders by digital technology, endangering democracy đ±.
7/ To counter this future, he created DigiCash, a company dedicated to the adoption of e-cash. At its peak, DigiCash collaborated with giants like Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse â.
8/ However, Chaum's most notable collaboration never came to fruition. Netscape (precursor to Firefox) had planned to integrate Chaum's e-cash with a "money button", but this was never finalized đ.
9/ Similarly, it is said that Bill Gates offered Chaum $100 million to integrate DigiCash into Windows 95. This deal could have propelled e-cash into the mainstream, but Chaum refused đ§.
10/ The DigiCash bankruptcy didnât erase Chaumâs influence. Pioneers like Wei Dei, Nick Szabo, and Adam Back have taken up his torch. Here he is on stage with Szabo and Back in 2019 đ.
11/ Adam Back talks about this on @WhatBitcoinDid, explaining how Chaum inspired the beginnings of Bitcoin. According to him, DigiCash failed where Bitcoin triumphed đ„.
12/ Two decades after DigiCash, Chaum's ideas are still being explored to help Bitcoin evolve. This is the case with open-source projects like Cashu, which creates "Chaumian ecash protocols" as a Layer 2 for Bitcoin đ.
13/ Today, Chaum calls Bitcoin "brilliant". However, he remains more interested in other cryptos and CBDCs. Although it is unfortunate, his pioneering work remains simply legendary. âš
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