The Prehistory of Blockchain

In this talk, we will go over the prehistory of blockchain - the ideas and projects that inspired and guided Satoshi in creating Bitcoin. There were several earlier attempts at a digital currency, such as David Chaum's eCash, Nick Szabo's Bit Gold, and Wei Dai's b-Money.  Proof of work was used in Adam Back's hashcash. And all of these rested on more fundamental ideas, like the very concepts of a blockchain data structure and digital signatures. This talk will cover the groundwork laid by these pioneers that eventually led to Bitcoin and modern blockchain technology.