Wakefield Scott Stornetta (born June 1959) is an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and

scientific researcher The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific me ...

. His 1991 paper "How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document”, co-authored with

Stuart Haber Stuart Haber is an American cryptographer and computer scientist, known for his contributions in cryptography and privacy-preserving technologies and widely recognized as the co-inventor of the blockchain. His 1991 paper "How to Time-Stamp a Dig ...

, won the 1992 Discover Award for Computer Software and is considered to be one of the most important papers in the development of cryptocurrencies. Stornetta is currently a fellow at the Creative Destruction Lab, a science and technology-based startup accelerator at the

Rotman School of Management The Joseph L. Rotman School of Management (commonly known as the Rotman School of Management, the Rotman School or just Rotman) is the University of Toronto's graduate business school, located in Downtown Toronto. The University of Toronto has be ...

at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

. He is also a founding partner and chief scientist of Yugen Partners, a blockchain-focused venture capital firm that counsels investors on blockchain startup opportunities and governments on blockchain policy, as well as the Director of the Board of Advisors for the American Blockchain PAC.

Career

In 1989, Stornetta began working as a scientific researcher at

Bell Communications Research iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...

(Bellcore), where he met

, his future scientific partner and collaborator. In 1994, Stornetta and Haber co-founded Surety Technologies, a spinoff of Bellcore. In 1995, Surety’s offering constituted the first commercial deployment of a

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

and is currently the oldest running blockchain. In 2019, Stornetta and Haber delivered the keynote address at the

Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics The Gary Becker Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary center for research in economics. The institute was established at the University of Chicago in June 2011. It brought together the activit ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains Conference. He also spoke in both the Distinguished Lecture Series at

Virginia Tech University Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six reg ...

and the Decentralized Learning Series at the

University of Nicosia The University of Nicosia was established in 1980 and its main campus is located in Nicosia, the capital city of Cyprus. It also runs study centres in Athens, Bucharest and New York. The University comprises the School of Business, School of ...

Contributions

Stornetta and Stuart Haber are the most cited authors in

Satoshi Nakamoto Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, authored the bitcoin white paper, and created and deployed bitcoin's original reference implementation. As part of the implementation, Nakam ...

’s original Bitcoin white paper; of the eight citations, three reference their work. Their 1991 paper "How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document” is where they first describe a digital hierarchy system called "

Blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

". In this study, Stornetta and Haber sought to create mechanisms to create digital time stamps, offering a solution for maintaining the integrity of digital records and ensuring that they could not be modified or manipulated. In 1992, Stornetta, Haber, and Dave Bayer incorporated Merkle trees into their design, improving its efficiency by allowing many document certificates to be collected into one block. Stornetta is a co-author of "Central Bank Digital Currencies and a Euro for the Future", a report published in June 2021 by the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum. The report addresses the latest trends and developments of digital currencies and discusses the future of blockchain in Europe and the rest of the world.

Personal Life

Stornetta is a member of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

. He describes himself as a

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stornetta, Wakefield 1959 births Living people 20th-century American physicists University of Toronto people