Nick Szabo
Computer scientist, legal scholar, smart-contract pioneer
- Known for
- Bit gold, smart contracts[1]
- Years active
- 1990s–present[1]
- Key contribution
- Bit gold design (1998), a Bitcoin precursor[1]
- Notable date
- Dec 2005: bit gold post[2]
No openly licensed photo found; stylized monogram shown.
“A long time ago I hit upon the idea of bit gold. The problem, in a nutshell, is that our money currently depends on trust in a third party for its value.”
Bio
Nick Szabo is an American computer scientist, legal scholar and cryptographer. He introduced the concept of smart contracts in writing in 1994 and expanded on it in 1996.[1]
In 1998 he designed bit gold, a decentralized digital currency based on costly proof-of-work bits. It was never implemented but has been called a direct precursor to Bitcoin's architecture. He published a detailed description on his blog in 2005.[1][2]
Satoshi Nakamoto wrote in 2010 that Bitcoin implemented Wei Dai's b-money proposal and Szabo's Bitgold proposal.[3]
Timeline
1994
Writes about smart contracts[1]
1998
Designs bit gold[1]
December 2005
Publishes the bit gold post[2]
Connections
Nick Szabo Bitgold named as a basis of Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto. Source
Elsewhere on CHC
Sources
Checked Oct 15, 2026 · All people