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“MIT DCI Director Neha Narula: How Academia Interacts With The Bitcoin Ecosystem
A talk with the director of DCI at MIT, Neha Narula, on the role academia plays in the Bitcoin ecosystem and how that might evolve over time.”
In this issue:
Two new Bitcoin Core developers: Wladimir returns and Sebastian joins us
New paper on privacy and the digital pound with the Bank of England released
Neha Narula selected for Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center Residency
Student researcher Ishaana Misra wins Chaincode’s inaugural Bitcoin Scholarship
And more...
Neha Narula, Director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), has been selected for the Rockefeller Foundation's 2025 Bellagio Center Residency.
In this issue:
Neha Narula's keynote speech at AFT '24 in Vienna
BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens visits MIT
DCI Advisor Simon Johnson receives Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024
And more...
“In the West there has been significant resistance to the concept of retail central bank digital currencies (CBDC) based on ‘Big Brother’ concerns. In other words, privacy fears that the government can monitor personal payment transactions. Or sometimes, even concerns that they might attempt to control behaviors. Hence, the Bank of England and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Digital Currency Initiative (MIT DCI) published a paper exploring privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) for a possible digital pound.”
As innovation in electronic payments accelerates, privacy considerations are becoming ever more important. While the generation and use of data is an intrinsic part of electronic payments and can benefit consumers and businesses, it may also present privacy concerns, particularly if there are not sufficient safeguards.
Why does innovation in financial services matter to everyone, and how can the public sector support its advancement? On Thursday, September 26, MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative was privileged to host a visit and fireside chat at the Media Lab on these questions and on the future of money with Dr. Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.
In this issue:
New student thesis on mitigating undercutting attacks in Bitcoin
2024 MIT Bitcoin Expo roundup
Final issue of the Cryptoeconomic Systems journal and the journal’s new publisher
New papers and collaborations shared
And more...
DCI’s Madars Virza wins a test-of-time award at IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
Madars Virza SM '14, PhD '17, a Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), is the recipient of an IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy Test of Time Award for “Zerocash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments from Bitcoin,” a paper he co-authored in 2014.
Madars Virza SM '14, PhD '17, a Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), is the recipient of an IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy Test of Time Award for “Zerocash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments from Bitcoin,” a paper he co-authored in 2014.
In this issue:
Bitcoin Fridays
New collaboration announced
Engineering for privacy in central banks
New faces at the DCI
And more!
On April 16, Dr. Joachim Nagel, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, the central bank of Germany, visited the MIT Media Lab. There, he announced this new collaboration between the Bundesbank and the DCI for central bank digital currency design research.
In October, former central banker Chris Calabia of MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative (MIT DCI) gave a talk at The Institute of International & European Affairs titled “Towards a Central Bank Digital Currency? One View from the United States.”
In this, the second of the IIEA’s mini-series of webinars on the subject of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), Chris Calabia, Head of CBDC Programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Digital Currency Initiative, shares recent research on the opportunities and challenges presented by the potential introduction of a CBDC like a ‘digital dollar’. Mr. Calabia addresses practical and policy questions that this digital asset could raise for our economies and societies, including whether CBDCs could promote greater financial inclusion and how to safeguard privacy while mitigating other risks like fraud and money laundering.
MIT DCI research scientist Daniel Aronoff shared his work on US Treasury repo markets on two occasions this fall. He spoke on the “Repo on chain and collateral mobilization” panel at the 2023 Rates & Repo North America, and participated in the NBER Market Design Working Group Meeting. You can find information about his ongoing research on this topic here, and watch a video of the panel below.
In November, MIT Digital Currency Initiative research scientist Daniel Aronoff participated in a panel discussion along with Ed Golding, Executive Director of the MIT Golub Center for Finance, on fintech and the digitization of finance at the MIT Research and Development Conference. The lively conversation touched on many topics relevant to DCI’s work, including safeguarding privacy in central bank digital currencies, decentralizing repo markets through smart contracts, and the future of cash.
In this issue:
Our work on Bitcoin security
New extension to PArSEC
The DCI at Media Lab Members' Week
And more!
“This week MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative (MIT DCI) released the source code of research into smart contracts for central bank digital currency (CBDC) – PArSEC (Parallelized Architecture for Scalably Executing smart Contracts). Given the solution is designed for central banks, it is a centralized offering and sidesteps using blockchain, although it supports Ethereum smart contracts. “
“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) has introduced the experimental PArSEC platform. PArSEC — short for "parallelized architecture for scalably executing smart contracts" — is open source and developed with central bank digital currency (CBDC) in mind. “
In this issue:
New research on programmability and smart contracts
Bitcoin Core updates
Welcome students to the DCI
And more!
In this issue:
How to support the DCI
Updates to the Bitcoin Security Initiative
The DCI on the Ethereum network
A preview of the latest research on Project Hamilton
And more!
“Although crypto enthusiasts may now be inclined to distance themselves from FTX, the episode reflects ‘the crypto we created,’ says Neha Narula, director of the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT.”
DCI senior advisor Chris Calabia was interviewed on his experience as a regulator, his advice for innovation, and more. Chris worked for over twenty years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Through that role and others, including as a Senior Advisor on regulatory policy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Chris has worked closely with regulators from all of the world, providing him a unique perspective not only into the mindset of US regulators, but regulators in many different socioeconomic contexts.
On April 22-23, the MIT Bitcoin Club hosted the 10th MIT Bitcoin Expo. DCI director Neha Narula gave a keynote speech, Cryptoeconomic Systems managing editor Reuben Youngblom presented a talk titled "The 70 Megaton Gorilla: Addressing the PoW climate narrative," and DCI software engineer Sam Stuewe presented an asynchronous talk titled "Are We CBDC Yet? A Healthy Dose of Skepticism." Sam also mentored participants in the Expo's Hackathon.
On April 27, DCI director Neha Narula spoke at Consensus 2023 on private and public money and the role of blockchain technology in future digital payment systems.
James Lovejoy, of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, presented "Hamilton: A High-Performance Transaction Processor for Central Bank Digital Currencies" at NSDI '23. This paper was co-authored by Madars Virza, Cory Fields, and Neha Narula of the DCI and James Lovejoy, Kevin Karwaski, and Anders Brownworth of the FRBB, and it proposes the Hamilton transaction processor, one of the primary results of this collaboration.
The featured image on this post is by Thomas Hawk, and used under a Creative Commons license.
DCI researcher Reuben Youngblom gave a talk on blockchain ethics at ETHDenver. As blockchain becomes more impactful in the world, our obligation to make sure that we are proceeding in a responsible manner increases. But what does a responsible future look like?
The featured image on this post is by Timothy Actwell and used via a Creative Commons license.
In this issue:
The DCI at the MIT Bitcoin Expo, Consensus, Davos, and more.
Project Hamilton at NSDI '23.
Special thanks to DCI strategic advisor Shira Frank.
ICYMI: Two virtual events on CBDC, now available on demand.
And more!
On Tuesday, January 17th at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Axios markets reporter Courtenay Brown and MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative director Neha Narula considered the most pressing issues facing cryptocurrency today including how (and if) the industry should be regulated, how governments and financial institutions should interact with the sector, and how investments could be safeguarded. The View from the Top sponsored segment featured Ripple chief executive officer Brad Garlinghouse.
Potential designs may involve intermediaries in new and different ways
Central bank digital currencies potentially offer, in a digital form, the advantages of central bank money: settlement finality, liquidity and integrity. However, both offline and online commerce are susceptible to fraud and other kinds of disagreements. The existing techniques for managing fraud and disputes focus on giving users easy access to chargebacks, which relies on intermediaries to resolve disputes. Potential designs for CBDC may involve intermediaries in new and different ways, or may not use intermediaries at all, calling into question how to address fraud if CBDCs become widely used.
On this episode of “Money Reimagined,” Michael Casey, solo in Davos, Switzerland, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, speaks with Neha Narula, the director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative to discuss the trends of both digitalization and innovation pertaining to stablecoins, digital currencies and the future of public money,