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Daniel Nagy

Daniel Nagy

Swarm

(Oct 2014 to ???)

DEVCON0 self-introduction

Daniel Nagy DEVCON0 introduction

Daniel Nagy was the original architect of Swarm, bringing concepts he had developed since at least 2011 to improve on BitTorrent's limitations.

Background

Daniel had a background in cryptography and security, and had operated DC++ nodes. Viktor Trón recalled in his Early Days of Ethereum interview:

"Actually some of us like Dani operating a DC++ node had some legal troubles maybe… So that's kind of brought us, brought him quite directly in the kind of realm of implementing Swarm. This idea of a decentralized storage and incentivization, etc."

Daniel saw the qualities of BitTorrent but also its drawbacks - slow startup times, lack of proper incentives, chunks not being directly addressable, reliance on centralized trackers, and poor privacy properties. His vision for Swarm addressed all of these issues.

Joining Ethereum

Daniel started learning about Ethereum around April 2014. He was the fourth to join Jeff Wilcke's ÐΞV Amsterdam team, hired as a contractor in October 2014. Per Jeff's Ethereum ÐΞV Update I:

"Daniel has a history in crypto and security and his first tasks is to create a comprehensive spec for our DHT implementation and the development thereof."

Daniel and Viktor both attended DEVCON0 in November 2014, where Daniel presented on Swarm:

Ethereum ÐΞVcon-0: Keeping the Public Record Safe and Accessible
by Daniel Nagy, November 27, 2014

Swarm Origins

Zsolt Felföldi noted that Daniel's ideas for Swarm went back to at least 2011:

The technical architecture Daniel designed included:

Ethersphere

Daniel worked with Viktor through Ethersphere, the GitHub organization Viktor created in March 2014 that became the home for Swarm development. Zsolt Felföldi joined them in 2015, initially to work on the light client.

Later Work

During the Ethereum Foundation's austerity period in 2015, Swarm was officially defunded, though Jeff Wilcke quietly allowed development to continue. The first Swarm release was included in Geth 1.5 in December 2016.

Swarm eventually spun out from the Ethereum Foundation in 2019-2021, with the Swarm Association founded in Switzerland and the BZZ token launched in 2021.

Back-links

Other pages that reference this: