Neha Narula, Director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), has been selected for the Rockefeller Foundation's 2025 Bellagio Center Residency.
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[The] sudden implosion of the popular cryptocurrency exchange FTX has intensified a political war for the soul of crypto that was already raging.
In the coming year, we are likely to see that fight come to a head in US courtrooms and in Congress. The future of finance hangs in the balance. […]
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.
To begin with, she says, the industry is over-reliant on centralized exchanges like FTX. But it’s not just the centralization. “It’s also this token casino economy,” says Narula.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) and associated organizations marshaled a sizable team of researchers in four low- and middle-income countries — India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Mexico — to study inclusion issues related to retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) design. They released the results of their 15-month research project on Jan. 13.
In spite of a growing body of work related to CBDCs, “few if any proponents have offered practical insight into how CBDC will promote greater access to financial services,” the DCI, along with the MIT Media Lab and Maiden Labs, claimed.
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The Endless Thread team is excited to introduce a new mini-series: Tales from the Crypto, or three windows into the wild world of cryptocurrency. It's a landscape ripe for investors, gamblers, opportunists, and academic investigators — both online and offline. At every turn, our hosts and producers have turned to experts to make sense of this volatile, ever expanding terrain.
In the series' first installment, co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dive into a viral tweet about NFTs aiding Ukrainians with the war effort against Russia, as well as plans for a crypto island paradise that was never meant to be.
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Last summer, a special subcommittee of the US Senate met remotely to weigh the benefits of launching a central-bank digital currency, or CBDC—something that could, if optimally designed, transform the US financial system, making it more accessible to more citizens. For senators staring intently at their laptops, this was basically the first day of digital-currency school. And to introduce them to this highly technical world, the first witness that Senator Elizabeth Warren called was MIT Digital Currency Initiative director Neha Narula.
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DCI Director Neha Narula co-authored the piece, "Why Central Bank Digital Currencies?" published in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Liberty Street Economics
“In the past year, a number of central banks have stepped up work on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs – see map). For central banks, are CBDCs just a defensive reaction to private-sector innovations in money, or are they an opportunity for the monetary system? In this post, we consider several long-standing goals of central banks in their support and provision of retail payments, why and how central banks tackle these issues, and where CBDCs fit into the array of potential solutions.”
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China is beating the U.S. when it comes to innovation in online money, posing challenges to the U.S. dollar’s status as the de facto monetary reserve. Nearly 80 countries — including China and the U.S. — are in the process of developing a CBDC, or Central Bank Digital Currency. It’s a form of money that’s regulated but exists entirely online. China has already launched its digital yuan to more than a million Chinese citizens, while the U.S. is still largely focused on research.
The two groups tasked with this research in the U.S., MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, are parsing out what a digital currency might look like for Americans. Privacy is a major concern, so researchers and analysts are observing China’s digital yuan rollout.
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View the DCI presentation and fireside chats from the 2021 MIT BItcoin Expo here
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DCI Director Neha Narula took part in The New Yorker’s “How Memes Become Money” discussion. Watch the highlight reel by clicking here..
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If you are trying to grasp Bitcoin and understand what China’s digital yuan means, America’s Federal Reserve is right there with you.
Read MoreAmerica’s Federal Reserve says it is in no rush to issue a digital currency, but it is coming under intense and increasing pressure to research and understand the design and potential of digital money.
Chamber of Digital Commerce's Perianne Boring and Neha Narula of MIT Media Lab explain central-bank digital currencies and what their emergence means for crypto and fiat money.
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Intense interest in cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, and the Covid-19 pandemic have sparked debate among central banks on whether they should issue digital currencies of their own. Advocates argue that central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, can make cross-border transactions easier, promote financial inclusion, and provide payment system stability. Here's how central bank digital currencies could become the future of digital finance.
Read MoreRe: Comments to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on Requirements for Certain Transactions Involving Convertible Virtual Currency or Digital Assets
FinCEN Docket No. FINCEN-2020-0020, RIN 1506-AB47
January 4, 2021
DCI Director, Neha Narula and Patrick Murck (@virtuallylaw) submitted this comment on FinCEN's latest proposed rule. They explain this might limit policy choices for a future digital dollar, reduce market competition, and most importantly, that's not how addresses actually work.
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