Originally, blockchain was conceived as the underlying technology for Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto (an alias for the unknown inventor(s)?) in October 2008. This was not the first time; however, the idea of cryptographically securing a chain of data blocks had been described. There were multiple publications throughout the 1990s by several authors, sometimes in parallel. In the late 1990s and at beginning of 2000, the first publications arose which talked about a decentralized digital currency and a theory of cryptographically secured chains. Two important names generally acknowledged for inventing the intellectual precursors of the technology are Wei Dai and Nick Szabo.
It wasn't until 2008, however, when these concepts ...
