Gavin Andresen (Formerly known as Gavin Bell) is an American

software developer Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invo ...

known for his involvement with

bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

. He is based in

Amherst, Massachusetts Amherst () is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (although the county seat ...

. Originally a developer of 3D graphics and virtual reality software, Andresen became involved in developing products for the bitcoin market in 2010, and was declared by

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 ...

as the lead developer of the

reference implementation In the software development process, a reference implementation (or, less frequently, sample implementation or model implementation) is a program that implements all requirements from a corresponding specification. The reference implementation o ...

for bitcoin

client software In computing, a client is a piece of computer hardware or software that accesses a service made available by a server as part of the client–server model of computer networks. The server is often (but not always) on another computer system, ...

after Satoshi Nakamoto announced his departure. In 2012 Andresen founded the

Bitcoin Foundation The Bitcoin Foundation is an American organization that was formerly a nonprofit corporation. It was founded in September 2012 in an effort to restore the reputation of Bitcoin after several scandals, and to try to promote its development and u ...

to support and nurture the development of the bitcoin currency, and by 2014 left his software development role to concentrate on his work with the Foundation.

Career

Andresen (at the time Bell ) graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1988. He began his career working on

3D graphics software 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...

at Silicon Graphics Computer Systems. In 1996, he co-authored the

VRML VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language, pronounced ''vermal'' or by its initials, originally—before 1995—known as the Virtual Reality Markup Language) is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graph ...

2.0 specification, and later published a reference manual for VRML 2.0. Since leaving

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Cou ...

in 1996, Andresen has tackled a wide variety of software-related ventures, including CTO of an early

Voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

startup and co-founder of a company that made multiplayer online games for blind people and their sighted friends.

Bitcoin

Andresen was the lead developer for a part of the

digital currency project, working to create a secure, stable "cash for the Internet." Andresen discovered bitcoin in 2010, considering its design to be brilliant. Soon after he created a website named '' The Bitcoin Faucet'' which gave away bitcoin. In April 2011, Forbes quoted Andresen as saying, "Bitcoin is designed to bring us back to a decentralized currency of the people," and "this is like better gold than gold." After joining the developers contributing to Bitcoin along with

, he went on to become lead developer of the client software for the bitcoin network. He stepped back as lead maintainer in 2014. Andresen also created ClearCoin, an

escrow An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacti ...

-type of service, which was closed on about June 23, 2011. After several years working on the software, Andresen left the role of lead developer of bitcoin to work on the strategic development of its technology. He conceived of the

which became reality in 2012. In May 2016 Andresen stated that the Australian programmer and entrepreneur Craig Wright was Nakamoto, but later expressed regret getting involved in the "'who was Satoshi' game." Andresen has not contributed to Bitcoin since February 2016. He had become critical of the failure of bitcoin developers to increase network capacity, and helped put together

Bitcoin XT Bitcoin forks are defined variantly as changes in the protocol of the bitcoin network or as the situations that occur "when two or more blocks have the same block height". A fork influences the validity of the rules. Forks are typically conduct ...

as alternative software. His commit access to Bitcoin Core on

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, cont ...

was revoked in May 2016 after stating Wright was Satoshi Nakamoto. In November 2017, Andresen expressed support for rival currency

Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that is a fork of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash is a spin-off or altcoin that was created in 2017. In November 2018, Bitcoin Cash split further into two cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV. History Since i ...

, stating "Bitcoin Cash is what I started working on in 2010".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Andresen, Gavin People from Amherst, Massachusetts People associated with Bitcoin Princeton University alumni Living people People associated with cryptocurrency American computer programmers Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)