[Coinlive Talk] Defining ingenuity: An Interview with the Inventor of Blockchain

• Stuart Haber, alongside fellow scientist Scott Stornetta, are credited as being the inventors of the data structure that lay the groundwork for Bitcoin
• The scientist says that blockchain was first invented to secure not just financial transaction, but all of the world’s digital records
• He also explains that blockchain cannot be fully decentralised, and that governments are wary of cryptocurrency for good reason

While names like "Vitalik Buterin", “Elon Musk”, and even “Satoshi Nakamoto” are no stranger to raised eyebrows and bated breaths in the crypto scene, few may recognise the name Stuart Haber. Yet blockchain technology and all that we know of cryptocurrency today may not exist but for this mathematical genius. Indeed, research done by Haber and fellow research scientist Scott Stornetta have been widely credited towards the genesis of Bitcoin, and both are the most-cited sources in Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper. Of the eight references used in said paper, three belonged to the research of Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta.

To find out more about the birth of blockchain technology, we spoke with renowned cryptographer Stuart Haber, also known as the founder of blockchain technology, in an exclusive interview.

“I started working in Bellcore (Bell Communications Research) in 1987, and after a couple of years another researcher was hired by the name of Scott Stornetta,” Stuart explains. “He came to me in ‘89 with a problem that he was obsessed with – namely of how to ensure the integrity of digital records.”

Stuart, who has lectured, published, and received patents on several practical and theoretical aspects of cryptography and computer security, algorithms, and who has an Erdös number of 2, explains that during that period, it became increasingly worrying that the world’s records were moving online, but that computer files were notoriously easy to change and manipulate.

“Scott and I were actually worried about the integrity of all the world’s records once they went online,” he says.

Stuart and Scott labored on this point, eventually producing a solution for the above problem that was presented at Crypto 1990, the premiere technical conference during the time. That solution took the form of a paper, now famously known as “How to Timestamp Digital Documents”. A year later, the scientists produced yet another paper, titled “Improving the Efficiency and Reliability of Digital Time-Stamping", which outlined the data structure that we call blockchain today. Said data structure and use of cryptographic hash functions was later used by Satoshi Nakamoto to develop Bitcoin.

Interestingly, despite how cryptocurrency is oftentimes the primary association with blockchain technology today, it was never the focal point for Stuart and his research decades ago.

“We weren’t ourselves trying to invent purely digital money,” he says. “There was an active area of research going on at the time regarding creating digital money amongst cryptographers in the late eighties, but we were more ambitious than that. We wanted to secure all of the world’s records.”

Stuart cites the instance of the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria in 48 BC, which served as a source of inspiration for him in wanting to secure digital records in today’s age. The library, which was known as one of largest and most significant stores of knowledge of the ancient world, was almost completely destroyed in a fire started by Alexander the Great.

“We were interested in not just the financial aspect of blockchain technology, but also about securing the integrity of history,” Stuart says.

And secure it is meant to be, especially with the underlying benefit of decentralisation to the extent where no single central entity would be responsible for the preservation of these records. Stuart however, argues that decentralisation was an aspect that he, alongside Stornetta, could not actually solve despite being pioneers of the technology:

“When we first addressed the problem of integrity of digital records, a straightforward solution suggested itself, which was the hash and signed solution,” he explains. “However, that relied on a single entity to be in charge of the integrity of records within a certain domain, a single entity that can be bribed, corrupted, or hacked, leading to what we call a single point of failure.”

“So, we wanted a solution that did not require this centralised entity. We spent quite a bit of time until I told Scott, “Maybe we can’t solve this problem because it is in fact impossible to solve.” What we ended up doing was to go back to the hash and signed solution and improve on it, which led to the data structure of Bitcoin.”

According to Stuart, Bitcoin’s very own data structure was synthesised upon an upgraded network that actually did rely upon centralised authority. Of course, with significant improvements, the network has evolved into the “decentralised” form we know of today. Yet Stuart is unconvinced even then, of crypto actually achieving full decentralisation.

“You can’t, in a vacuum, build a system that’s completely decentralised,” he says. “There have been enthusiastic anarchists who say that there should be no social institutions whatsoever. But it’s against human nature to build a completely decentralised system. It’s hard to do so.”

Coinlive’s Interview with Stuart Haber, Cryptographer and co-developer of blockchain technology

The scientist also admits that blockchain technology may not live up to all the hype that has been surrounding it in recent times.

“I am nowhere near as wildly enthusiastic about the use of blockchain techniques to solve problems than many crypto afficionados are,” he says. “I don’t think blockchain is going to save the world.”

He goes further to point out the weaknesses in blockchain technology today.

“Smart contracts, like all programs, are hard to write well, and certainly harder to write safely. If important institutions like banks and national economies want to even consider depending on smart contracts, they better well be written safely,” he explains.

Indeed, despite all the glitz and glamour surrounding cryptocurrency in recent times, hacks and exploits have been increasingly proliferated. According to blockchain analytics firm Chainanalysis, $718 million was stolen across 11 different DeFi protocols in October alone, bringing the running tally for the year to $3 billion across 125 different hacks as at the time of writing of this article.

“We feel perfectly safe sitting here in this booth because we know that this building has been built according to scientific engineering techniques that scientists and engineers and architects know to be true,” Stuart says. “There are regulations in most places in the world that require buildings to be built in certain structurally sound ways. There’s no such thing in the software world.”

Just as Stuart says, crypto has often been touted as the “Wild West” of the financial industry, and governments around the world are becoming increasingly cautious and wary of it. Singapore for instance, has recently proposed for qualifying tests that retail investors need to undergo before being allowed to conduct crypto trades. The white paper issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore underscores the nation’s apprehension towards crypto: “Even though cryptocurrencies play a supporting role in the broader digital asset ecosystem, they are heavily speculated upon, with prices that are not associated with any underlying economic value.”

Stuart echoes a similar sentiment, arguing that there is little value in protesting for greater governmental support for crypto:

“You have libertarians who are frustrated at governments wanting to be careful about things. I mean, that’s like being frustrated by the law of gravity. It's human nature to be skeptical and wary of these highly dangerous factors.”

Indeed, cryptocurrency cannot simply exist in silo. To the extent that blockchain technology, especially with the advent of cryptocurrency, does have practical impact on the real world, accountability is paramount.

“You can’t just say ‘we’ll fix this ourselves’, or ‘I only do the mathematics,’” Stuart says as we close off the interview.

“If you’re doing something in the real world that’s important to people, there’s law, politics, and social mechanisms to answer to.”

This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Readers should take the utmost precaution before making decisions in the crypto market. Coinlive is not responsible or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the article or for any damage or loss to be caused by and in connection to it.