Eli Ben-Sasson Explained

Eli Ben-Sasson (Hebrew: אלי בן-ששון) is an Israeli computer scientist known for his work on zero-knowledge proofs. He is also the co-founder and CEO of StarkWare Industries, and a former professor at Technion.

Career

Ben-Sasson studied theoretical computer science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning his PhD in 2001.[1]

In 2014, Ben-Sasson and other researchers collaborated on Zerocash, a design for a private cryptocurrency based on zero-knowledge proofs. Ben-Sasson later became a founding scientist of Zcash, which was based on the Zerocash design.[2] [3] [1]

In 2018, Ben-Sasson and other researchers invented STARKs, a type of zero-knowledge proof which has applications in blockchain privacy and scalability.[4] [5] [6] Later that year, Ben-Sasson co-founded StarkWare Industries, which aims to scale blockchains using STARK techniques.[7] [8] Ben-Sasson later became CEO after Uri Kolodny stepped down from the role in 2024.[9]

In April 2019, Technion sued Ben-Sasson along with co-founder Michael Riabzev, alleging that StarkWare Industries was based on intellectual property developed at the university.[10] The institute demanded 50% of Ben-Sasson's stake in the company. Ben-Sasson maintained that the company merely used employees' knowledge, but no invention belonging to the Technion.[11] In 2020 the two sides reached an agreement and Ben-Sasson left the Technion.[12] [13]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Eli Ben-Sasson. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
  2. EB . Sasson . A . Chiesa . C . Garman . M . Green . I . Miers . E . Tromer . M . Virza . 2014 . Zerocash: Decentralized anonymous payments from bitcoin . 2014 IEEE symposium on security and privacy . 459–474.
  3. Web site: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency - IEEE Spectrum. spectrum.ieee.org.
  4. Web site: Scalable, transparent, and post-quantum secure computational integrity. Eli. Ben-Sasson. Iddo. Bentov. Yinon. Horesh. Michael. Riabzev. November 1, 2018. Cryptology ePrint Archive (eprint.iacr.org).
  5. Web site: Ethereum Scaling Company StarkWare Quadruples Valuation To $8 Billion Amid Bear Market. Nina. Bambysheva. Forbes.
  6. Web site: Israel's Ethereum scaling tool Starknet Prover will be made open source. February 5, 2023. The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com.
  7. Web site: Israeli blockchain firm develops 'fire prevention' tech to thwart FTX-style fraud | The Times of Israel.
  8. Web site: Eli Ben-Sasson develops technology to make blockchain 20,000 times cheaper. Kiran Mathur. Mohammed. July 29, 2021. Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.
  9. Web site: StarkWare CEO Uri Kolodny Steps Down Due to Family Health Issue. Ian. Allison. January 11, 2024. www.coindesk.com.
  10. Web site: Technion sues own lecturer, claims intellectual property infringement. April 23, 2019. The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com.
  11. Web site: Dobrovitsky. Lital. 22 April 2019. Technion Suing Senior Professor for 50% of His Company Stake. 7 January 2023. CTECH - www.calcalistech.com.
  12. News: Ofir . Dor . 25 March 2021 . Blockchain scalability co Starkware raises $75m . Globes.
  13. News: Amitai Ziv. Caring for Your CryptoKitties Has Never Been Easier, Thanks to These Israelis. en. Haaretz. 7 January 2023.

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