Yonatan Sompolinsky is an Israeli computer scientist, founding scientist at DAGLABS, and founder of KASPA. He was one of the researchers behind the GHOSTDAG protocol in Ethereum's original roadmap.^[2]

Education

In 2013, Yonatan Sompolinsky began his studies at the Hebrew University, studying computer science. He completed his undergraduate degree and continued to earn his Ph.D. from the same institution until 2018. During his time at Harvard as a Postdoctoral researcher, Sompolinsky focused on the GHOSTDAG protocol, which aimed to enhance scalability and security in blockchain networks. ^[7]

Career

In 2013, Yonatan Sompolinsky, along with his advisor Aviv Zohar, proposed the GHOST (Greedy Heaviest Observed Sub-Tree) protocol. The GHOST protocol addresses the scalability limitations of traditional blockchain consensus algorithms by introducing a more efficient approach to reaching consensus. It has played a pivotal role in the development of various blockchain systems, particularly those utilizing Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structures. ^[9]

In 2016, Yonatan Sompolinsky was actively involved in exploring and advancing consensus algorithms for DAG-based systems. His research has focused on finding efficient ways to order transactions and prevent conflicts in DAG protocols which led to him publishing The SPECTRE (Serialization of Proof-of-work Events) consensus algorithm, co-authored by Aviv Zohar. The crypto and blockchain community quickly gained interest in Yonatan's work after these papers were released and began asking for a project of his own to be launched. ^[4]

In 2021, Sompolinsky founded KASPA, a layer 1 blockchain that operates on a proof-of-work system and incorporates the PHANTOM/GHOSTDAG protocol, and uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). ^[8]