Nick Szabo , a cryptographer who worked on an early bitcoin prototype, played a key role in developing smart contracts and has been suspected of being Satoshi Nakamoto, is now raising money for a bitcoin/blockchain startup, according to Quartz .
Szabo is trying to raise $3 million, according to unnamed sources and a pitch deck that Quartz reviewed. One source said Fenbushi Capital, a China-based venture capital firm that has invested in blockchain ventures, has already committed $1 million in seed capital for the startup. A Crypto Pioneer
Szabo worked on DigiCash, an electronic currency that went bankrupt in 1998. A company called eCash Technologies acquired DigiCash, which in turn was acquired by InfoSpace in 2002, according to Investopedia .
Szabo was also instrumental in developing smart contracts, which are blockchain-based agreements that automatically execute. Financial institutions including UBS, Barclays and JP Morgan have investigated smart contracts as a way to automate back office functions and reduce costs.
Nathaniel Popper in May 2015 wrote in The New York Times that evidence indicated Szabo is Sastoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s mysterious founder, an assertion that Szabo denied. The matter has gained interest in recent weeks as Craig Wright, an Australian entrepreneur and engineer, claimed to be Nakamoto, a claim that many question.
Szabo is a long-time decentralized currency philosopher and even published a paper entitled “ bit gold ” which many consider a precursor to bitcoin, CCN previously reported. A Recent Conference Talk
Szabo spoke at the D Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in October for the Bitcoin Investor Conference 2015, saying he wants to bring the power of bitcoin and the block chain to the world of traditional investments.
The fundraising effort in the past few months has focused on venture capital firms that have shown interest in bitcoin and blockchain.The deck that […]
