Applications

b_verify is a new protocol for issuing and transacting in verifiable records using a public blockchain. Focused on warehouse receipts as a first use case, its purpose is to improve access to credit and price discovery in supply chains, especially in emerging markets pursuing digitization of paper records.

Cryptokernel is a toolkit to help everyone learn about blockchain technology. It shares basic structural elements with Bitcoin but is intended for variation and experimentation.

The Web is a key space for civic debate and the current battleground for protecting freedom of expression. And yet, it has steadily evolved into an ecosystem of large, corporate-controlled mega-platforms. This report evaluates the potential for new technologies to enable shifts toward decentralization.

This article is the result of a collaboration between Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the MIT Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), based at the MIT Media Lab. It was published by BCG and was composed by Amit Ganeriwalla (BCG), Michael Casey (MIT), Prema Shrikrishna (MIT), Jan Philipp Bender(BCG), and Stefan Gstettner (MIT)

Blockchain technology has the potential to change many aspects of the financial services sector and the broader economy. The 21st Geneva Report on the World Economy reviews the basics of blockchain technology and its challenges, costs and benefits, gives an overview of its potential direct impact on the financial sector, and assesses possible use cases beyond the world of finance. Written by Michael Casey, Jonah Crane, Gary Gensler, Simon Johnson, and Neha Narula for Geneva Reports on the World Economy 21. It was published in combination with International Center for Monetary and Banking Studies (ICMB) and Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

This article examines how the legality of governmentally-compelled decryption can be surprisingly sensitive to technological nuances. It overviews the reasoning behind a collection of cases that have shaped the doctrine to date on compelled decryption and the Fifth Amendment, and categorizes past cases into four archetypal patterns. Building upon this, the Article examines the sensitivity of the doctrine to technological change by means of “technological hypotheticals”: that is, by identifying assumptions implicit in courts’ analyses to date regarding the nature of the encryption technology involved, and considering the potential impact of realistic variant technologies (such as special types of encryption) that could challenge those assumptions. Next, the Article revisits the doctrine and the ongoing challenge faced by courts of reaching robust decisions whose underlying reasoning will remain unequivocal and relevant in the face of future technological developments. Towards addressing this challenge, some specific analytical approaches and technical considerations are distilled. Then, inspired by the importance of the concept of existence in Fifth Amendment doctrine as influentially set forth in Fisher v. United States, discusses the nature of existence of encrypted data and passwords as distinct from that of more tangible objects, accentuating some challenges of applying precedent set in the physical domain to digital information. The Article concludes with a brief reflection on the long-term desirability of technological sensitivity as found in compelled decryption cases.