10 People Who Are Working to Change the World
6. Gavin Andresen
Gavin Andresen is a Amherst, Massachusetts-based chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation and one of the leading men behind the Cryptocurrency Revolution. He has access to the alert key that allows him to broadcast messages about critical network problems to all clients.
A cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions and to control the creation of new units. Cryptocurrencies are a subset of alternative currencies, or specifically of digital currencies. Bitcoin became the first decentralized cryptocurrency in 2009. Since then, numerous cryptocurrencies have been created. These are frequently called altcoins, as contraction of bitcoin alternative.
Cryptocurrencies typically feature decentralized control (as opposed to a centralized electronic money system, such as PayPal) and a public ledger (such as bitcoin’s block chain) which records transactions.
In April 2011, Andresen publicly said that, “Bitcoin is designed to bring us back to a decentralized currency of the people,” and “this is like better gold than gold.”
Most recently, Andresen has been the lead developer for a part of the Bitcoin digital currency project, working to create a secure, stable cash for the Internet.
