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While the technology behind blockchains – and its underlying concepts – can be difficult to understand at first glance, even the least tech savvy can understand the distributed ledger and database systems with a little patience. The true mystery is who invented blockchains in the first place.
We do our best to unmask the identity of blockchain’s creator and look at some of the technology pioneers that made its invention possible.
In the simplest terms, a blockchain is a type of database system composed of blocks (think of them as a group of related records in a table) that are linked – or chained – together through a series of cryptographic hashes.
Each block within this chain contains data about the previous block, creating a line of transaction records that are immutable. The term immutable means that the data represented by each block cannot be changed unless subsequent blocks are altered, which can only happen if the nodes of a networked group of computers are in “consensus” and agree that the request is legitimate.
For a better understanding and more in-depth explanation, check out our article What is blockchain?
It is difficult to discuss the creation of blockchain without referencing what most people consider to be its first “real-world” application – namely, as the public, distributable database or ledger for tracking transactions with the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The creator of Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakamoto, which most crypto researchers agree is a pseudonym for one or more individuals.
Nakamoto began writing the code behind Bitcoin in 2007 and released a whitepaper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” shortly thereafter, at the end of October in 2008.
Three months later, in 2009, Nakamoto released the first version of Bitcoin software (version 0.1) and continued developing the software into 2010, at which point he relinquished control of the source code repository to Gavin Andresen, a developer of virtual reality software and eventual founder of the Bitcoin Foundation.
While there are many theories as to the true identity of Nakamoto or the people behind the pseudonym, to date there is no definitive answer to who created the first real implementation of blockchain.
While Nakamoto is credited with bringing blockchain to the forefront of the digital currency movement, he is not the originator of the blockchain concept.
The first precursor to the blockchain protocol came in 1982 from a cryptographer by the name of David Chaum. He proposed the idea in a dissertation titled, “Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups”. In this dissertation, Chaum outlined the idea of a blockchain database.
Picking up from there, the team of Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta began work on a chain of blocks that could be secured by cryptographical means. Their thought was that they could use document timestamps to ensure data could not be altered.
This work was further enhanced when Dave Bayer, an American mathematician, joined the team and introduced a design that would allow multiple document certificates to be gathered into a single block.
Other concepts and innovations would be developed in the years following Dave Bayer’s design (known as Merkle Trees) and prior to Nakamoto’s release of Bitcoin.
This includes Stefan Konst’s theory of cryptographic secured chains and Hal Finney’s system for digital cash, “Reusable Proof of Work”. The latter effectively solved what is known as the “Double Spending Problem” – a type of attack on a blockchain network in which cryptocurrency can be spent more than one time.
An interesting side note: the first ever purchase made with Bitcoin came from Laszlo Hanyecz, a hungry programmer who spent 10,000 Bitcoin to purchase two pizzas from Papa John’s, launching the infamous “Bitcoin Pizza Day”. At the time, the tokens were valued at a little over $40 – an amount that would be worth close to a trillion dollars as of the beginning of 2025.
The exact toppings Hanyecz received have been lost to history, but he was purported to have stated that he liked “onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, and pepperoni.” He also noted he did not like “weird fish toppings”.
