Nick Szabo is one of the most recognizable and respected figures in the world of cryptocurrency. He is the inventor of smart contracts and Bit Gold, laying the foundation for the creation of Bitcoin. He defined smart contracts 14 years before Bitcoin. Also, Nick has a very wide range of interests: from the history of money, economics, and law to cryptography and blockchain technology.

It was Nick Szabo who, back at the end of the last century, made the groundwork for the first digital currency. Much of his work was the basis for the now popular Bitcoin. In 1998, Nick developed an algorithm for a decentralized digital currency called “digital gold,” legally named Bit Gold. The essence of the idea was very simple, but at the same time very interesting. First of all, the concept implied the transformation of bits and some digital information into some kind of equivalent, serving as an intermediary for the exchange.

Bit Gold combines various elements of cryptography and mining for decentralization. These elements include time-stamped blocks that are stored in a title registry and are generated using performance validation strings (PoW). Sabo proposed a decentralized PoW feature that can be stored, transmitted, and analyzed securely with minimal trust.

Bitcoin and bit-gold have a lot in common, especially the systems that are used to process transactions and protect the decentralized network. The structure of bit-gold involves a cryptographic puzzle that the user must solve using processing power. Each solution is then part of the following puzzle while creating a chain connecting the solution of the most recent puzzle to the result of the following, thereby validating blocks of transactions. This is a very similar process to block creation in bitcoin, where hash addresses are used as headers pointing to the next set of blocks.

The bit gold system proposed by Szabo is not interchangeable. This means that different amounts of Bit Gold must be combined to make a single transaction. 

Bit Gold operates in a decentralized and distributed system of trust between the individual nodes or participating computers that make up its network.

The entire ICO market, the boom in blockchain projects, the development of decentralized applications, and even the creation of cryptocurrency banks are possible thanks to smart contracts. “Smart contract” was first invented by Nick Szabo and 20 years later implemented in the Ethereum protocol. In 1996, Nick’s article “Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Free Markets” was published, in which he described the idea: how to achieve an agreement between strangers on the Internet. This is possible through self-executing code. The social contract evolves with society, today it has this form – in digital, which the digital age and the new industrial revolution require.

Moreover, Nick Szabo is present in the public space, he remains a rather mysterious personality. Many believe that Sabo is the founder of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, although he constantly refutes these rumors. He is not an anonymous fictional character. Mr. Sabo has given many public lectures, worked as a consultant for several projects, and regularly posts on Twitter where he shares his ideas. But nothing is known about his personal life.  

Szabo’s understanding of money, history, and cryptocurrency makes his writings an invaluable resource for those interested in blockchain technology. Bit Gold was the first potential decentralized cryptocurrency project. Nick Szabo conceived Bit Gold to address the inefficiencies of the traditional financial system. A decentralized financial network promises to eliminate dependence on financial institutions and remove barriers to cross-border transactions.