[Blockchain Copywriter] Crypto Thought Leaders – Emin Gün Sirer
In the fourth of our Crypto Thought Leaders series, we present Emin Gün Sirer, one of the earliest supporters of crypto, from academia and hacking forums, who emerged as a respected face and an icon as CEO of Ava labs. He is an early proponent of Bitcoin circa 2011, and has been investigating and creating cryptocurrencies for over two decades. Gün has made enormous contributions to security, underlying problems in code, and has dedicated his life to the success of the space.
Who is Emin Gün Sirer?
Gün grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, where they had a black and white TV with only one channel. He was accepted into the (IAS) Istanbul American High School, where he was introduced to computers, and spent his formative years developing an eye for precision, and an appreciation for masterful engineering.
Gün was granted a scholarship for college in Princeton, NY in 1989, around the time the internet was being adopted. His aspiration back then was to develop AI, until he realised there more demand with other technologies, such as distributed systems, to revolutionise the world. Eager to stay in America and pursue a life of academia, in 2002 he completed a PHD in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, and achieved the position of Associate Professor of Computer Science (Computing) and Information Science (Engineering) at Cornell University, NY where he resided between 2007-2021.
Gün’s research into Blockchain predates Bitcoin. In 2002, he developed a decentralised peer to peer cryptocurrency called Karma. It didn’t take off, but it was the first “proof-of-work” Blockchain. https://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/egs/papers/karma.pdf
Within a research group, he has published papers on the early days of Bitcoin, involving suggestions to improve the protocol:
‘Majority is Not Enough, Bitcoin Mining is Vulnerable.’ 1st November 2013. https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~ie53/publications/btcProcFC.pdf
He later proposed a forked chain, Bitcoin-NG, based on Bitcoin facing “a significant scalability barrier.” Several crypto projects have been built upon it, including Waves, a top 100 crypto:
‘Bitcoin-NG: A Next Generation Blockchain.’ 7th October 2015.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.02037.pdf
In 2016 Gün launched and became co-director of IC3, a cryptocurrency initiative comprising faculty members of several technological universities, with sponsors including IBM and Intel. IC3 is most famous for identifying nine exploitable vulnerabilities on DAO protocol in May 2016. Despite the warning, no patches were made, and a month later hackers were able to steal $52 Million. DAO was a top 5 crypto at the time.
He currently works at Ava Labs, where he has been Co-Founder and CEO since 2019. In 2020 they released an L1 Blockchain Avalanche (AVAX), which hosts close to a million monthly active users, with a focus on network security, subnets, and tokenising real assets.
Emin Gün Sirer’s Content
Gün is active on Twitter, and used to frequent crypto Reddit groups under the handle “el33th4xor”. He features on numerous YouTube channels spanning a decade, from keynote talks, to interviews and podcasts; while his research papers discussing Karma and Bitcoin can be accessed for free on the Cornell University website. You can also find him on the following weekly YouTube series and techie blog:
All Access with Emin Gün Sirer
Since October 2021, Gün presents the latest news about crypto every Friday on YouTube. He occasionally discusses Avalanche, but his show is more geared towards sharing knowledge behind the broader crypto space. He also delves into topics viewers submit in advance.
Hacking, Distributed
From 2013 to 2020, Gün operated a blog for techies as well as thinkers, discussing the principles of crypto, particularly Bitcoin. One such post is titled “Bitcoin Runs on Altruism.” He targets misinformation, and points out systems he believes need fine tuning. He also chronicles some vital moments in Bitcoins history, from mining dilemmas to the Mt. Gox saga.
Insights and Opinions
The idea behind All Access:
“I always wished I could shadow some of my mentors or some of the people I looked up to, and I always wished I could figure out how they viewed problems, how they approached issues. So, I will try and give you a glimpse.”
Ethereum Killer:
“Communities are fighting each other… they think everything is going to emerge as an Ethereum killer. Ethereum itself is trying to be an Ethereum killer. Ethereum 2.0 is a killer for 1.0.”
On the scope of crypto:
“The science of blockchains, as well as the engineering of blockchains, is far from established. We’re still doing ongoing cutting-edge research.”
“The game is much bigger than what people think it is, the downstream effects for society are far bigger than what people think.”
“So many academics forget that our goal, as a profession, is not to publish papers. It’s to change the world.”
“Contracts, legal entities, and the like, these are all agreement mechanisms that are social and very powerful. Their equivalents in the digital space are just as powerful, much faster, and much more efficient. They have the ability to transform society.”
Crypto Trifecta [x2]:
“There are three big problems in the space of blockchains. Richard Feynman always told all of the young physicists to always focus on the big problems in their area… The number one problem is scale… [followed by usability, and governance].”
“At the end of the day the three things you want are security, reliability, and performance.”
On Bitcoin’s White Paper:
“He should really be citing Karma, but Satoshi was not classically educated. I think he was a self-taught person. So, he was citing some forum posts and so forth, but was not really in command of the academic work in the space.”
Thought Leadership Status
Emin Gün Sirer is an OG from the early days of Bitcoin, now heading an alt layer 1 that many respect. A fascinating public speaker, he offers insights from both a technical and academic background, from a life dedicated to constructing, patching security and advancing crypto technology. He considers himself a crypto fan intent on inspiring the next generation of creators, envisioning mass adoption and many use cases.