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London, United Kingdom, October 22nd – The Ethereum Foundation is pleased to announce the Keynote Speaker of Ethereum\u2019s annual conference D\u039eVCON1<\/a>, Nick Szabo. Nick\u2019s keynote will focus on the history of the blockchain, smart contracts and assets on the blockchain.<\/span><\/p>\n Nick is a computer scientist, legal scholar and cryptographer known for his research on digital contracts and digital currency. The phrase and concept of \u201csmart contracts\u201d was developed by Szabo with the intent of merging contract law into programming protocols on the Internet.<\/span><\/p>\n Recently, Szabo contrasted the use of smart contracts on Ethereum in relation to the Bitcoin blockchain, \u201cIf you want to have a flexible general purpose programming environment like programmers have been used to since the 1950s at least, then you\u2019re going to want to use\u00a0Ethereum because it\u2019s got a Turing complete language and a large state. I sometimes make the comparison of a pocket calculator [Bitcoin] versus, say, a general purpose computer [Ethereum].<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin noted, \u201cwe are thrilled to welcome Nick to D\u039eVCON1<\/a>. His pioneering work on smart contracts and the evolution of blockchain technology will add a tremendously valuable perspective to the conference\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n D\u039eVCON1 will be held from November 9th-13th at Gibson Hall in London, UK. It will feature five days of technical presentations and events on research and core protocols, decentralised application (dApp) development, and industry and social implications.<\/span><\/p>\n Ethereum<\/a> is a decentralized blockchain protocol that executes smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.<\/span><\/p>\n Ethereum<\/a> is how the Internet was supposed to work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n