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 , where they identified a problem : the world relied so heavily on records that weren ’ t authenticated by an independent party , diminishing trust in their efficacy – and the duo wanted to set about creating a solution .

Within a year of presenting their idea , Haber and Stornetta had written the algorithm that would become recognised as the blockchain . The term itself 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 .

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 .

16 October 2022