How it all started.
Various people from across the world have been working tirelessly on blockchain technology and crypto currencies since the 80/90’s and there have been multiple attempts to solve the complex issues surrounding cryptocurrency, by arguably some of the most brilliant minds in this space.
One of the first attempts to create a system close to Bitcoin was by David Chaum who created the first known proposal for a blockchain protocol. In 1997 Dr. Adam Back created Hashcash and in the following year Wei Dai published a proposal for B-Money. Both Hashcash and B-Money are referenced in the Bitcoin whitepaper and the work of these bright minds became the building blocks of the Bitcoin Protocol we know today.
The receiver of the first bitcoin transaction was cypherpunk Hal Finney, who had created the first reusable proof of work system (RPoW) in 2004.
The year: 1982
David Chaum
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David Lee Chaum is an American computer scientist and cryptographer.
Outstanding achievements
He is known as a pioneer in cryptography and privacy-preserving technologies, and widely recognized as the inventor of digital cash.
His 1982 dissertation "Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups” is the first known proposal for a blockchain protocol. Complete with the code to implement the protocol, Chaum's dissertation proposed all but one element of the blockchain later detailed in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
The year: 1997
Adam Back
CV stuff
Adam Back is a British businessman, cryptographer and cypherpunk.
Outstanding achievements
He invented Hashcash in 1997, a similar system to Bitcoin which was famously cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Back corresponded with Satoshi Nakamoto and is a pioneer of early digital asset research alongside the likes of David Chaum, Wei Dai and Hal Finney and was pivotal to the creation of Bitcoin.
Back is part of the long list of people suspected to be Satoshi, the inventor of Bitcoin. Although he has repeatedly denied it.
The Year: 1998
Nick Szabo
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Nick Szabo is a computer scientist, legal scholar and cryptographer known for his research in digital contracts and digital currency.
Outstanding achievements
In 1998, Szabo designed a mechanism for a decentralized digital currency he called "bit gold”. Bit Gold was never implemented, but has been called "a direct precursor to the Bitcoin architecture."
Like Adam Back, Szabo also features in a long list of people suspected to be Satoshi, the inventor of Bitcoin. Although he has repeatedly denied it.
The year: 1998
Wei Dai
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Wei Dai is a computer engineer known for contributions to cryptography and cryptocurrencies.
Outstanding achievements
Wei developed the Crypto++ cryptographic library and created the b-money cryptocurrency system in 1998. He also co-proposed the VMAC message authentication algorithm.
Dai was one of the first people contacted by Satoshi when he was developing Bitcoin in 2008 and the b-money paper was referenced in the subsequent Bitcoin whitepaper.
The Year: 2008
SATOSHI NAKAMOTO
CV stuff
Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to be a pseudonym name used by the person or persons who developed and launched Bitcoin anonymously.
Outstanding achievements
Notable events linked to Satoshi are the registration of the domain name "bitcoin.org" in August 2008. This was followed by the posting of a link to a paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System to a cryptography mailing list in October 2008.
On 3 January 2009, the Bitcoin network was created when Nakamoto mined the first block of the chain, known as the Genesis Block.
Famously embedded in the first block was the text "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”. This note references a headline published by The Times and has been interpreted as both a timestamp and a comment on the instability caused by our current financial system.
Satoshi Nakamoto holds approximately one million BTC representing a value of US$ 8,820,000,000 at the time of writing (8.82 Billion) which still remains untouched.
The year: 2009
HAL FINNEY
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Hal Finney was a highly regarded computer scientist and cypherpunk.
Outstanding achievements
Hal Finney’s contributions were pivotal to Bitcoin. In 2004, Finney created the first reusable proof of work system years before Bitcoin. He was an early Bitcoin contributor and received the first Bitcoin transaction from its creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
In August 2014, Finney sadly passed away due to complications arising from motor neurone disease, and is cryopreserved.
The Year: 2010-11
Gavin Andresen
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Originally a developer of 3D graphics and virtual reality software, in 2011 he became the lead Bitcoin developer after Satoshi had announced his departure.
Outstanding achievements
Famous for joining the developers contributing to Bitcoin along with Satoshi Nakamoto, in April 2011, Andresen expressed the view that, "Bitcoin is designed to bring us back to a de-centralized currency of the people," and "this is like better gold than gold." Forbes Magazine.
By November 2017 he expressed support for rival currency Bitcoin Cash stating "Bitcoin Cash is what I started working on in 2010".
The Year: 2010
Laszlo Hanyecz
CV stuff
Laszlo is a computer programmer who made contributions to the Bitcoin source code.
Outstanding achievements
Hanyecz made the first documented purchase of goods with Bitcoin when he bought two Domino's pizzas for 10,000 BTC. Those two pizzas at todays’ value would cost approximately USD 90,000,000.
That transaction gave Bitcoin validity and usability and to commemorate the transaction, May 22 is dubbed Bitcoin Pizza Day.
Pizza providers worldwide offer discounts to Bitcoin users to commemorate Laszlo's purchase. His actions secured his place in the Bitcoin Hall of Fame.
the year: 2011
Roger Ver
CV stuff
Born and raised in Silicon Valley, Roger Ver was an early investor in Bitcoin, Bitcoin-related startups and an early promoter of Bitcoin.
Outstanding achievements
Ver began investing in Bitcoin in early 2011. The first investment he made was for Charlie Shrem's BitInstant. He went on to invest over a million dollars into new Bitcoin related startups including Ripple, Blockchain.info, BitPay and Kraken.
He now promotes Bitcoin Cash.
THE YEAR: 2011
CHARLIE SHREM
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Charlie Shrem IV is an American entrepreneur and Bitcoin advocate. He co-founded the now-defunct startup company BitInstant, and is a founding member of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Outstanding achievements
Shrem was pivotal to the progression of Bitcoin. He co-created BitInstant with Gareth Nelson, because the service he was using crashed, and he lost his Bitcoins. The more user-friendly BitInstant allowed users to make purchases with bitcoins at over 700,000 locations. By 2013, BitInstant was processing approximately 30% of all bitcoin transactions.
In 2014 he was sentenced to two years in prison for aiding and abetting the operation of an unlicensed money-transmitting business related to the Silk Road marketplace.
THE YEAR: 2011
Ross William Ulbricht
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Ross William Ulbricht is an American software engineer. He created the darknet market website Silk Road in 2011 which he ran until his arrest in 2013. The site was designed to use Tor for anonymity and Bitcoin as a currency. In May 2015, he was sentenced to a double life sentence plus forty years without the possibility of parole.
Outstanding achievements
Ross Ulbricht created the Silk Road which was a digital black market platform popular for buying and selling illegal items using Bitcoin. His vision was of a free market experiment with an emphasis on user anonymity where people had the means to buy and sell whatever they wanted, as long as they didn’t hurt others.
Ulbricht claimed that he was "creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force”.
Silk Road, regarded as the first darknet market, was launched in 2011 and was eventually shut down by the FBI in 2013 and he remains incarcerated at United States Penitentiary in Tucson.
THE YEAR: 2012
ANDREAS ANTONOPPULOS
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Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a Greek-British Bitcoin advocate, tech entrepreneur, best-selling author and highly sought after expert in Bitcoin and open blockchain technologies.
Outstanding achievements
Since 2012 Antonopoulos has been a vociferous advocate of Bitcoin. He is a regular speaker at conferences about Bitcoin, consultant for start-ups, and writes articles free of charge for the cause.
A great educator, Andreas has served as a teaching fellow for the free Introduction to Digital Currencies course offered to the public at the University of Nicosia. Andreas has also written two best-selling technical books for programmers, Mastering Bitcoin and Mastering Ethereum and has published a series of books which focus on the social, political, and economic importance of these technologies called The Internet of Money.
Andreas is also a host on the Let's Talk Bitcoin podcast and a teaching fellow for the M.Sc. Digital Currencies at the University of Nicosia.
THE YEAR: 2013
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss
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Born in the 1980s, Identical twin brothers, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are known as the Winklevoss twins. The brothers are Internet entrepreneurs and are also known for their rowing prowess.
Outstanding achievements
The Winklevoss twins had the idea for the first Facebook-like site called ConnectU. In 2008, the Winklevoss brothers famously won their case against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their ConnectU idea to create Facebook back in 2004.
The brothers reportedly own nearly 1 percent of the total supply of Bitcoin worth more than $1 billion. As Internet entrepreneurs they are also known for raising $1.5 million of seed funding for BitInstant in 2013. This was followed in 2014 by the launch of Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange.
THE YEAR: 2013
Bobby Lee
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Bobby Christopher Lee is an engineer and entrepreneur best known as the founder of BTCC, China's first cryptocurrency exchange.
Outstanding achievements
Lee was an engineer at Yahoo before becoming Walmart’s vice president of technology in China. He became interested in Bitcoin through his brother Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin and one of the co-founders of BTCC.
In early November 2013, BTCC became the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, with a market share of about 31.7 percent, surpassing Tokyo-based Mt. Gox. Bobby Lee sold BTCC in 2018 and now runs a startup called Ballet that creates Bitcoin wallets.
He serves on the board of directors of the Bitcoin Foundation.
THE YEAR: 2013
Wences Casares
CV stuff
Wences Casares is an Argentinian Silicon Valley-based fintech entrepreneur.
Outstanding achievements
Casares founded Internet Argentina, Wanako Games, Patagon, Lemon Wallet, and Banco Lemon. He is also known as the entrepreneur to convince Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, and other tech veterans in Silicon Valley to invest in Bitcoin. Highly influential, he sits on the boards of PayPal, Libra, and Coin Center.
He is the CEO of Xapo, a Bitcoin wallet startup based in Palo Alto California which is said to be the largest custodian of Bitcoin in the world. The company is believed to hold as much as $10 billion of the cryptocurrency in underground vaults on five continents including in a former Swiss military bunker.
THE YEAR: 2014
Tim Draper
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Timothy Cook Draper is an American venture capital investor.
Outstanding achievements
Draper is a major proponent of Bitcoin and decentralisation and helps entrepreneurs to drive their company visions through funding, education, media, and government reform.
His most prominent investments include Baidu, Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, Angle List, SolarCity, Ring, Twitter, DocuSign, Coinbase, Robinhood, Ancestry.com, Twitch, Cruise Automation and Focus Media.
In 2014, Tim Draper purchased a bulk of 30,000 BTC seized bitcoins from the Silk Road marketplace website, from the US authorities in an auction. He outbid all participating investors by paying $632 per Bitcoin, with a slight premium.
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