Crypto: The Magic Technology of the World Computer

Crypto is a basket of cybersecurity technologies that can record and reason about our digital histories.

Like the modern internet before it, crypto’s first applications have attracted opportunism on an unprecedented scale. Just as the first internet was written off as the preserve of opportunists and frauds, crypto’s first wave of adopters have hidden from view its ultimate place in the world’s computing systems.

In this talk, Tom Walton-Pocock will:

• describe why crypto is both a verified internet, and a final flourishing of the cloud computing age; a “world computer in the sky”
• explain the importance of consensus systems in recording and verifying digital history, and
• make some guesses about the future of Web3, including a possible role for deep crypto technologies as a safety harness for artificial intelligence systems

He will also try to give a high level account of some of the deep science of crypto:

• how crypto systems are secured by an ancient kind of algebra known to the Greeks; the “next hardest thing to understand after the circle”
• how the mysteries of these structures are the ‘foundational prayer’ on which the security of the current and future internet depend
• describe some of the magical sciences that underpin crypto, from Nakamoto Consensus to zero knowledge proving systems, tracing their historical roots to surprising origins, from the coordination of armies to the the problem of colouring maps of the world

About our speaker

Tom Walton-Pocock is the founder of Geometry, a deep tech investor focussing principally on Web3 infrastructure. Before this, Tom cofounded Aztec, a London-based applied cryptography company that has become one of the leading deep tech companies allowing the ‘third web’ to scale to millions of users.
 He holds BA and Masters degrees in Mathematics, is a graduate of King’s College, and held a one-year choral scholarship at Trinity College. He has recently started a blog about frontier technology on his website.

The Evening

Guests should arrive from 6.30pm to meet for a drink and get comfortable before we move to the lecture room for the talk and discussion starting at 7pm sharp. The talk will be finished by 8pm at which point we can move back to the quiet bar area for drinks and more chat. There will be a cash bar before and after the talk.

*Only members of the Cambridge Society of London (and their guests) may book tickets – if you are not currently a member and would like to become one, please visit the group's enrolment page.