Yonatan Sompolinsky is an Israeli computer scientist and blockchain researcher best known for pioneering scalable consensus protocols based on directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). He co-authored the influential GHOST protocol in 2013, which challenged Bitcoin’s longest-chain rule, and later introduced SPECTRE and PHANTOM/GHOSTDAG—breakthroughs that enable faster, parallel block creation without compromising security. His academic work bridges theory and application, focusing on improving transaction throughput and consensus efficiency.

Sompolinsky is the founding scientist of DAGlabs and the creator of Kaspa, a proof-of-work blockchain built on PHANTOM/GHOSTDAG principles. After earning his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he continued postdoctoral research at Harvard, contributing to the academic backbone of next-generation blockchain systems. His work is widely recognized for advancing the scalability and decentralization of blockchain infrastructure.