> vitalik didn't credit him in his article
You mean this article?
https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/06/18/verkle.html
> Verkle trees are still a new idea; they were first introduced by John Kuszmaul in this paper from 2018[link to [0]],
0: https://math.mit.edu/research/highschool/primes/materials/20...