The blockchain has virtually emerged from nothing in the space of 30 years , at first seeming a niche concept that would have little benefit before being rightly recognised as a potential game-changer in business , finance and society in general

Much of the groundwork for the blockchain was set in the early 1990s . Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta met while working for US software company Bellcore and set about creating a solution to a problem they had identified : the world relies so heavily on its record-keeping but to ensure trust , records must be authenticated by an independent party .

Within a year of presenting their idea , Haber and Stornetta had written the algorithm that would become recognised as the blockchain . The term is derived from the way data , such as the record of a transaction and its unique hash , is packaged into blocks and linked together like a chain . The more blocks are added , the stronger the chain becomes .

By the end of the 1990s , computer scientist Nick Szabo had attempted one of the very first applications of this new ‘ decentralised ’ system , proposing ‘ bit gold ’, a forerunner to the very popular bitcoin . Bit gold was never implemented and it would take another decade before anybody would build on Haber and Stornetta ’ s work to launch a decentralised currency .

14 August 2022