25-year old video shows Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney talking zero-knowledge proofs

Finney, who received the first bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto, was recorded presenting code at the Crypto ‘98 conference

article-image

Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

A newly-unearthed video shows the Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney giving a talk on zero-knowledge proofs at the Crypto ‘98 conference. 

In the video, Finney talks about performing a zero-knowledge proof on a SHA-1 hash, demonstrating the existence of a cryptographically scrambled message without disclosing any details about the message. At the time of Finney’s talk, zero-knowledge proofs were known to be theoretically possible, but were generally viewed as inefficient or unfeasible.

“I wanted to find out just how inefficient or impractical they really are,” Finney says in the video before proposing a zero-knowledge proof system.

Much of Finney’s life was marked by challenging the boundaries of what was deemed possible. In 2009, the cypherpunk was the first bitcoin recipient, receiving ten bitcoin from the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto. The same year, Finney was diagnosed with ALS. Just shortly after, he wrote in a blog post: “[M]y dream is to contribute to open source software projects even from within an immobile body. That will be a life very much worth living.” Finney died in 2014 and is cryopreserved in Arizona.

The subject of Finney’s 25-year old talk remains vexing today. Ethereum layer-2s are locked in an arms race building zero-knowledge proofs to scale the ecosystem. However, the efficacy of this technology is yet to be established. Implementing zero-knowledge proofs can be prohibitively costly or compromise security, rendering them inefficient and impractical.

In Finney-ian fashion, though, crypto developers are still chipping away at a solution.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

  • Blockworks Daily: The newsletter that helps thousands of investors understand crypto and the markets, by Byron Gilliam.
  • Empire: Start your morning with the top news and analysis to inform your day in crypto.
  • Forward Guidance: Reporting and analysis on the growing intersection of crypto and macroeconomics, policy and finance.
  • 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox. Market highlights, data, degen trade ideas, governance updates, token performance and more.
  • Lightspeed: Built for Solana investors, developers and community members. The latest from one of crypto’s hottest networks.
  • The Drop: For crypto collectors and traders, covering apps, games, memes and more.
  • Supply Shock: Tracking Bitcoin’s rise from internet plaything worth less than a penny to global phenomenon disrupting money as we know it.
Tags

Upcoming Events

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research

article-image

With much of the bitcoin mining supply chain based in Asia, US-based operations now face higher equipment prices

article-image

Anticipating an economic downturn, venture firms may be less likely to invest

article-image

Trump’s tariffs may have potentially significant impacts on GDP, household spending and food prices — if they hold

article-image

The Binance-affiliated stablecoin lost about $200M of market capitalization

article-image

How the Bitcoin conversation has evolved since the price was less than $1

article-image

The platform also rolled out 13 tokenized funds for institutions on the Connect platform