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Introducing First Principles: The Scientific Roots of Blockchains
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A handful of ideas hold up the entire digital world, but most of us never learn where they came from. So we went to the source: the people who solved these problems, and won Turing Awards and Nobel Prizes for it. First Principles is a special series from a16z crypto about the scientific roots of modern computing — especially blockchains — told through rare conversations with the pioneers who helped shape the foundational ideas behind distributed systems, consensus protocols, economics, mechanism design, cryptography, zero-knowledge, and more. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and behind blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, as told by the people who helped build it. New episodes are…
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Analysis last updated August 25, 2026 · Read the methodologyRead the creator’s original video description
A handful of ideas hold up the entire digital world, but most of us never learn where they came from. So we went to the source: the people who solved these problems, and won Turing Awards and Nobel Prizes for it. First Principles is a special series from a16z crypto about the scientific roots of modern computing — especially blockchains — told through rare conversations with the pioneers who helped shape the foundational ideas behind distributed systems, consensus protocols, economics, mechanism design, cryptography, zero-knowledge, and more. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and behind blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, as told by the people who helped build it. New episodes are released weekly. Follow along: *** As always, none of the following should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.