In the cryptosphere, one name remains shrouded in mystery: Satoshi Nakamoto, the elusive creator of Bitcoin and the first blockchain. But what if the true origin of decentralized logic didn’t begin with Bitcoin’s whitepaper in 2008—but years earlier, in the quiet corridors of Stanford University? Meet Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis, a Stanford PhD and postdoctoral scholar who not only introduced CS359B —the university’s first course on decentralized applications—but also published a framework for writing smart contracts on fault-tolerant distributed systems before blockchain and Ethereum even existed. This is not a vague anecdote. It’s a timestamped academic thesis. It’s a documented system for automating digital agreements across resilient networks—before the world had a word for “blockchain.” Let that sink in. Smart contracts are the logic layer of decentralized systems. Ethereum made them famous. Bitcoin hinted at them. But Kokkalis built a wor...
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