Bitcoin --- A Scientific Computer Science perspective

Bitcoin is the first digital currency to see widespread adoption. In contrast to "Fiat Money" (government backed money, like the Sehquel), it is not enforced by legislation, regulation, or a central bank. Rather, it's motto is "In Crypto we Trust".

The success of Bitcoin motivates and challenges researchers in Computer Science (and other fields) to explain, model and improve various aspects of it. In this introductory talk I will survey Bitcoin and some of it's offspring from the perspective of Computer Science research.

Time permitting, I will describe our own work on a fully anonymous version of Bitcoin called Zerocash. (Joint work with Alessandro Chiesa, Christina Garman, Matt Green, Ian Miers, Eran Tromer and Madars Virza.)