Bitcoin Network Development

Introduction

It all started with a white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, and the release a few months later of the bitcoin software and the genesis block. The concepts and foundational work in this paper and Satoshi’s software are still used in Bitcoin Core today, and have inspired the launch of various digital currencies. DCI is dedicated to strengthening the advancement of Bitcoin Core and its mission.

In Bitcoin, anyone can run the software, mine, or contribute to software development. Visit the Bitcoin Core website to learn more.

We currently have two full-time team members who are actively contributing to and maintaining Bitcoin Core. Both these Core Contributors are ranked in the top ten of all Core Contributors by number of commits. Wladimir is a Lead Maintainer of Bitcoin Core and has contributed the most number of commits to the project on GitHub.

Other team members contribute to Bitcoin by tackling research problems in scalability, security, and privacy, which can be found on our other research pages.

The DCI’s “Bitcoin Security Initiative” plans to strengthen Bitcoin with industry leaders

Learn more about what our team members do for Bitcoin Core development.

Media

Featured
Joining MIT DCI to lead our Bitcoin Software and Security Effort

We’re excited to share that AJ Towns is joining the Digital Currency Initiative to lead our Bitcoin Software and Security Effort (please find his announcement below). This four-year research and development program is designed to continue to harden the Bitcoin network and steward the industry’s commitment to funding open source software. The effort will include contributing to Bitcoin Core development as well as longer-term research, such as investigations into the stability of rewards and software to provide strong robustness and correctness guarantees. It will also include attracting talent in network and operating system security, compilers, programming languages, testing, and more to join the effort.

DCI Team Members presented on an array of topics at the 2021 MIT Bitcoin Expo.
DCI Team Members presented on an array of topics at the 2021 MIT Bitcoin Expo.

View the DCI presentation and fireside chats from the 2021 MIT BItcoin Expo here

Bitcoin’s (un)common good

Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab Launches New Bitcoin Software and Security Effort with Industry Leaders

Thanks to millions of open source developer hours over the past 12 years, and a burgeoning and supportive ecosystem, Bitcoin is no longer an obscure cryptographic toy. It is now an open-source financial network that secures on the order of $1T of value.


As the use of Bitcoin grows, and as it becomes more deeply embedded into our societies, the security of the network must grow and strengthen alongside it. Yet, as a common good, there is no one single Bitcoin protector or guardian to take on this formidable task. By design, there is no central command. And while this presents significant logistical challenges, it is also the distinguishing feature perhaps most unique to Bitcoin: no central point of failure. Bitcoin's nearly-uninterrupted operation over the years is a testament to the power of decentralization…

Videos

Video
Bitcoin vs Ethereum Technicals with Vitalik Buterin, Andrew Poelstra, Tadge Dryja & Patrick McCorry

In this episode, I am joined by Andrew Poelstra, Tadge Dryja and Vitalik Buterin and Patrick McCorry. With Paddy as co-host, we discuss the fundamental and technical differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum, scalability and use cases.

Bitcoin 2020 + with Neha Narula and Elizabeth Stark - Mainnet 2020

At Messari's Mainnet virtual event, MIT Media Lab's Neha Narula and Lightning Lab's Elizabeth Stark discuss what's to come this year and beyond for both Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

MIT Bitcoin Expo 2020 - Bitcoin Core Devs Panel

Amiti Uttarwar (Bitcoin Core Contributor, Xapo), John Newberry (Bitcoin Protocol Engineer, Chaincode Labs), Pieter Wuille (Bitcoin Core Developer and Co-Founder, Blockstream), and Cory Fields (Developer, Bitcoin Core, MIT DCI) participate in panel discussion on Bitcoin Core moderated by Ethan Heilman (Co-Founder & CTO, Arwen) at the 2020 MIT Bitcoin Expo.

Bitcoin Security and Ethics with Neha Narula

While I was in Boston, I sat down with Neha Narula, the Director at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative. We discuss bugs in Bitcoin, Proof of Work being too risky and whether Bitcoin developers are ethical.

The security of Bitcoin is one of the factors which gives it so much value, and after ten years there still hasn’t been a single counterfeit Bitcoin created, there has never been a successful 51% attack, and the few potentially catastrophic bugs have been fixed without any negative consequences. But how secure is Bitcoin? Is Proof of Work too risky? Can we trust those that are developing Bitcoin to do so with the right ethical judgement?

In this interview, I spoke with Neha Narula, the Director of MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative to talk about these critical issues. We discuss:

- How the DCI got started

- Bugs in the Bitcoin protocol

- Proof of Work risks

- Ethical Bitcoin development

- 51% attacks

- Government controlled crypto