Exploring the Foundations of Digital Currency: eCash and HashCash

David Chaum, the inventor of eCash and CEO of xx network, and Adam Back, the inventor of Hashcash and the cofounder and CEO of Blockstream, discuss their involvement in digital currency well before Bitcoin existed. In this episode, they discuss:

• how they each became enamored with the idea of digital currency years before such an idea was widely discussed
• the crypto wars of the 1990s and the U.S. government’s attempts to control access to advanced cryptography
• Digicash, the creation of eCash, and the difficulties of implementing the system with the technology available at the time
• the innovation of blind signatures used in eCash
• what caused the demise of Digicash, and David's role in that
• the development of Hashcash and the problems Adam was trying to solve by creating it
• their initial reactions to learning about Bitcoin for the first time
• how they think Bitcoin might improve in the future
• the stock-to-flow Model, and where they believe the Bitcoin price might go next
• why the Hashcash proof-of-work mechanism became so widely used 

Thank you to our sponsor! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Episode links: 

Adam Back: https://twitter.com/adam3us

Blockstream: https://blockstream.com 

Adam's website: http://www.cypherspace.org

David Chaum: https://twitter.com/chaumdotcom

Elixxir: https://elixxir.io 

XX Network: https://xx.network

Previous Unchained episode on the history of digital currency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-bitcoin-now-the-history-of-digital-currency/

Wired article on “e-money”: https://www.wired.com/1994/12/emoney/  

Translated Dutch article on why DigiCash failed:  https://cryptome.org/jya/digicrash.htm

Aaron Van Wirdum's Bitcoin Magazine series on the history of digital currency:  https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-3-bitcoins-pre-history-and-the-cypherpunks-with-aaron-van-wirdum 

David Chaum's e-Cash: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream

Hashcash: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices