2. Neal Koblitz: Cryptography, Cryptocurrencies, and Geopolitics

We chat about:

-his journey into cryptography
-his thoughts about Ethereum as an early cryptographic advisor in 2014
-geopolitical relations vis a vis Russia, the US, and Vietnam

Neal Koblitz is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington as well as an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Applied Cryptographic Research at the University of Waterloo. Koblitz received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and received his PhD from Princeton University under Nicholas Katz. He is a world-renown mathematician best known for having co-created elliptic curve cryptography (or ECC) in 1985, a technology that underpins many of the information systems that exist today including Bitcoin and Ethereum. He was recently awarded the Levchin Prize in Real World Cryptography in 2021 for his work on ECC. He, along with his wife, runs the Kovalevskaia Fund, a foundation that encourages and aids women in science and technology in developing countries.