BitGold

While there were other projects which developed some of the requisite technologies for the blockchain, BitGold was the first to practically resemble a cryptocurrency. BitGold is the brain child of Nick Szabo, who outlined the benefits of a decentralized blockchain over current currencies, suggesting the combination of PoW consensus methods, one way algorithms and ledgers spread out over many servers, all of which are shared characteristics with Bitcoin. Nick was even talking about the implementation of Smart Contracts and “smart properties”, referred to as digital assets nowadays, since 1995. The creation of a “trustless” currency free from manipulation of governments is an ideological one and the basis upon which BitGold and BitCoin were founded.