There aren’t many founders in the crypto industry who have won a Turing Award, and Silvio Micali is one of them. He is one of the co-inventors of zero-knowledge proofs and later founded the public blockchain Algorand.

$ALGO is the native token of the Algorand network, founded by Silvio Micali. Current price: 0.1179 (24h -9.66%).

— Cryptographer —

Silvio Micali has taught in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1983. In 1985, he and Shafi Goldwasser and Charles Rackoff introduced the concept of zero-knowledge proofs.

In 1993, he and several collaborators received the Gödel Prize for their work on interactive proofs; in 2012, he and Goldwasser jointly received the Turing Award for their contributions to cryptography.

— What Are Zero-Knowledge Proofs? —

A zero-knowledge proof lets one party prove to another that a statement is true without revealing any additional information. For example, you can prove “I know the password” without actually telling anyone what it is.

Zero-knowledge proofs are used in many blockchain scaling and privacy solutions today. The theoretical roots of this technology can be traced back to cryptographic research in the 1980s.

— Algorand —

In 2017, Silvio Micali founded Algorand, a proof-of-stake blockchain. Its testnet opened to the public in April 2019, and its mainnet launched that June. Its native token is ALGO.

Algorand’s consensus uses cryptographic sortition to randomly select token holders to propose blocks and vote in each round. Others cannot know in advance who will be selected, making it difficult for attackers to target them ahead of time.

— How to Evaluate an Academic Background —

An academic background can reflect the quality of someone’s technical research, but it’s a different matter from how a token performs in the market. To evaluate a blockchain, you also need to consider its developers, applications, and real on-chain activity.

Many projects use terms like “zero-knowledge” or “ZK.” First, find out exactly how a project uses zero-knowledge proofs, then decide whether its claims hold up.

— Summary —

From zero-knowledge proofs to Algorand, Silvio Micali’s work spans both academia and industry. Understanding this background can help us better grasp what the technical terms really mean. Understand the rules before taking action, and don’t make decisions based on gut feeling.

What topics would you like to see? Let me know in the comments.

This is not investment advice. You assume all risks.