It was the amateurs of cryptology who created the species. The professionals, who almost certainly surpassed them in cryptanalytic expertise, concentrated on down-to-earth problems of the systems that were then in use but are now outdated. The amateurs, unfettered to those realities, soared into the empyrean of theory.
Cryptocurrencies and Cryptography
Cryptocurrencies and Cryptography: From Milton Friedman to William Shatner