[dragonwriter]

> The answer is yes, since Satoshi's paper back in 2008 a whole subset of CS research has propped up just on consensus algorithms.

That's been an active field of CS research for decades (it was an active field mentioned, though not explored in depth, in an introductory-level class I took in 1990), and (from Google Scholar) seems to have been hugely active starting about 4-5 years before Satoshi’s paper.

But I think the relevant point is that there has been progress since Satoshi, not that the progress is due to or solely in response to Satoshi.