Scott Stornetta’s 1990s papers laid the groundwork for blockchain, introducing concepts of unforgeable records, Merkle trees, and perpetual security, cited 3 times by Satoshi in the 2008 Bitcoin whitepaper.
Stornetta’s original timestamping system was a hybrid blockchain with proof-of-stake validation nodes, registering records on a minimalist chain without embedding human-readable info until the 3rd paper.
The system used the New York Times as a bridge between pre-web and web worlds, making libraries storing NYT records witnesses to blockchain state, requiring a 51% attack on global archives to tamper.
Bitcoin’s mining mechanism led to centralization and specialization of miners and nodes, diverging from Stornetta’s vision of decentralized block creation and distributed record.
Bitcoin’s value lies in its proof of work, requiring a balance of checks and balances in incentives, demonstrated by its endurance over time.
Bitcoin has failed as money, not becoming a widely used medium of exchange or unit of account, with its store of value role questioned.
Bitcoin’s scalability is achieved through layer 2 protocols like the Lightning Network, as the blockchain itself does not scale.
Bitcoin’s economic success is due to being the best candidate in a winner-take-all setting, persisting without fundamental value creation in a classical economic sense.
A decentralized system based on kilowatt hours as a unit of account could satisfy money’s needs without relying on historical government-backed fiat value.
The speaker envisions creating persistent digital identities using a universal public ledger and a network of genesis blocks for each identity, similar to Google PageRank.
AI-generated content will not matter long-term if it follows the record of decisions and choices made by individuals over their lives.
The speaker sees potential in moving physical assets along blockchain networks, which remains largely unrealized.
The speaker believes stable money should have the three classical characteristics: unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value, in a decentralized system without an insider.
