Contact
For general inquiries, contact dci@media.mit.edu
For applications and hiring-related questions, contact dci-jobs@mit.edu
For questions about DCI-hosted events, contact dcievents@media.mit.edu
For all press and media inquiries, please complete this form.
Get involved
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MIT Employee Roles: There are currently no open roles
Independent Contractor Roles: There are currently no open roles
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We, the DCI, do not directly process applications or accept students for MIT. If you are interested in applying to MIT, please visit the MIT Admissions page
We work with the following types of students on projects related to Bitcoin and digital currency technologies, including their adoption and use cases, across hands-on engineering, research, product management, and user research roles:
MIT students as UROPs, RAs, MEng students, PMs, and in other roles.
Non-MIT students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs at other institutions, particularly engineering students participating in co-op programs.
To apply for student opportunities, email your CV or résumé to dci@media.mit.edu, with the subject line “Interested Student CV/Résumé” and include:
Type of opportunity sought (e.g., undergraduate or graduate, engineering or research, hours available per week, in-person or remote, etc.)
Academic term(s) of interest
Your school, program, and expected graduation date
Your location during the appointment (Please note: we cannot currently accept student workers who will be located outside the United States during their employment or appointment.)
Relevant experience (please also include your GitHub profile, if applicable)
The DCI project, research area, and/or mentor you are interested in working with
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Join the DCI Slack workspace
MIT students may join using their MIT email address.
Non-MIT students should email dci@media.mit.edu with their résumé and university email to request access.
Attend the DCI research seminars (Hybrid) - Please email dci@media.mit.edu with your resume.
Join Student Clubs
Join the MIT Bitcoin Club (More tech focused) or the MIT Sloan Blockchain Club (More business/finance focused)MIT students can join club events, meetings, and conferences
Non-MIT students and members of the public can attend events and conferences, such as the MIT Bitcoin Expo
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Get involved with Bitcoin development!
Clone Bitcoin Core and start hacking: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/
Please consider lurking for a while before opening a PR/Issue!
Bitcoin-dev mailing list: https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev?pli=1
Join IRC channel: #bitcoin-core-dev on Libera - full details: https://bitcoincore.org/en/meetings/
Review club: Safe, welcoming environment to learn about hacking on Bitcoin - Held the first Wednesday and Thursday of the month, at 17:00 UTC on IRC - full details: https://bitcoincore.reviews/
Community events!
Please keep an eye out for DCI-sponsored conferences and events.
Attend the annual student led MIT Bitcoin Club’s Bitcoin Expo
Attend your regional BitDevs Meetup - Boston BitDevs
Join your local cryptocurrency meetup!
Check out the Bitcoin and Blockchain Events Calendar
Learn
In addition to exploring the DCI’s projects, blog posts, newsletters, and other publications, you can learn more about Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and related technologies through the educational resources below.
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The DCI is not currently teaching any courses
Read about our past classes here. -
These courses are taught at MIT and brought to you by MIT OpenCourseWare.
Cryptocurrency Design and Engineering - Coming Soon!
Course Number MAS. S62 - Fall 2025Bitcoin and other cryptographic currencies have been rapidly gaining adoption. This course explores the design of Bitcoin and other blockchains and how they function in practice, focusing on cryptography, game theory, security, networking, and system architecture. In Fall 2025, this course will be co-taught with the University of Brasília, connecting students through projects and discussions. Our goal is to get a more global view of the potential impact and use cases of the technology. Programming assignments in the course will give practical experience interacting with cryptocurrency software. Prior programming experience is required, and exposure to computer science systems or security courses is recommended.
Course Materials - MAS.S62 2025 on GitHub
Cryptocurrency Engineering and Design
Course Number: MAS.S62 - Spring 2018Bitcoin and other cryptographic currencies have gained attention over the years as the systems continue to evolve. This course looks at the design of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and how they function in practice, focusing on cryptography, game theory, and network architecture. Future developments in smart contracts and privacy will be covered as well. Programming assignments in the course will give practical experience interacting with these currencies, so some programming experience is required. Course taught by Tadge Dryja and Neha Narula.
Course Materials - MAS.S62 2018 on GitHub
Lecture Videos and Slides - MAS.S62 2018 on MIT OCWEntrepreneurs without Borders
Course Number: 15.395 - Fall 2016This course examines opportunities and problems for entrepreneurs globally, including Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Linkages between the business environment, the institutional framework, and new venture creation are covered with a special focus on blockchain technology. In addition to discussing a range of global entrepreneurial situations, student groups pick one particular cluster on which to focus and to understand what further development would entail. Classroom interactions are based primarily on case studies. Course taught by Robleh Ali, Michael Casey, Simon Johnson, & Neha Narula
Lecture Videos and Slides - 15.395 on MIT OCW
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Cryptocurrency
This six-week online course through Getsmarter.com provides a rigorous introduction to cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and the evolving digital asset ecosystem. Guided by experts from the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative and industry leaders, participants explore how cryptocurrencies work, their capabilities and limitations, and how they compare with traditional finance. Topics include blockchain technology, cryptocurrency security, smart contracts, decentralized applications (DApps), and digital asset economics. Through real-world examples and case studies, learners develop practical frameworks for evaluating cryptocurrency projects and gain a deeper understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and future potential of digital money.
This course for people who want to purchase an executive-style course - learn more here
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This list is not exhaustive and is intended only as a starting point for further exploration. The views expressed in the materials listed below do not necessarily reflect those of the DCI.
*Denotes an item that is also used as course reading for MIT DCI’s CDE MAS.S62 2025.
Bitcoin Fundamentals
Start Here
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System - Satoshi Nakamoto (Whitepaper)*
Things You Need to Know - Bitcoin.org (Guide)
What Is Bitcoin? A Beginner's Guide to Bitcoin Mining, Halving, and Real-World Uses- CoinDesk (Article)
Why Bitcoin Matters - Marc Andreessen (Article)
How the Bitcoin Protocol Actually Works - Michael Nielsen (Article)
Can Bitcoin Be Used For Good? - Chelsea Barabas & Ethan Zuckerman (Article)
Mastering Bitcoin - Andreas M. Antonopoulos (Book)
The Bitcoin Standard - Saifedean Ammous (Book)
Non-MIT Courses & Learning Series
Bitcoin Dev Project - Learning Library - Chaincode
Decoding Bitcoin - A Bitcoin Dev Project by Chaincode (Education Platform)
Getting Started with Bitcoin - James Lopp (Resource Collection)
Bitcoin Protocol Development Seminars - Chaincode
Videos
But How Does Bitcoin Actually Work? - 3Blue1Brown
How Does Bitcoin Work? - David Andolfatto
Bitcoin: What Is It? - Khan Academy
Explore the Network
Potpourii
Hashcash - A PoW system predating Bitcoin
Money, Payments, and Financial Infrastructure
Foundations of Money
What Is Money? - A. Mitchell Innes (Article)*
On the Origin of Money - Carl Menger (Article)*
Politics, Book I, Part IX - Aristotle*
Challenges with modern Financial Systems
Investigating the Real Impacts of Debanking in America - Aaron Klein (Testimony)*
Digital Cash Before Bitcoin
Untraceable Electronic Cash - David Chaum, Amos Fiat, and Moni Naor (Paper)*
Understanding Crypto & Blockchains
Big-Picture Introductions
The Future of Money - Neha Narula (Video)
The Five Camps of Crypto - Casey Caruso (Article)
Crypto Glossary - Alex Pruden & Sonal Chokshi
SoK: Research Perspectives and Challenges for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies - Joseph Bonneau et al. (Paper)
Blockchain Fundamentals
Blockchain Demos - Anders Brownworth (Video)
The Security, Stability and Scalability of the Blockchain - Brian Forde (Video)
Why the Blockchain Matters - Reid Hoffman (Article)
Thinking Outside the Blocks - Philip Evans (Paper)
Cryptography Essentials
Core Concepts
Hash Functions - Christof Paar (Video)*
New Directions in Cryptography — Whitfield Diffie & Martin Hellman (paper)*
Simple Schnorr Multi-Signatures with Applications in Bitcoin — Gregory Maxwell et al. (Article)*
Recommended Reading
The Library of Babel — Jorge Luis Borges*
Bitcoin Protocol & Consensus
Consensus
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System - Satoshi Nakamoto (Whitepaper)*
Security Proof for Nakamoto Consensus - Ling Ren (Article)*
Permissionless Consensus - Andrew Lewis-Pye & Tim Roughgarden (Paper)*
Simplex Consensus Protocol - Benjamin Y. Chan & Rafael Pass (Paper)*
Proof of Work
Network Security and Proof of Work: Do We Need an Alternative? - Arianna Simpson (Blog post)
Transactions & State
Bitcoin Transactions - Wikipedia*
Ethereum Whitepaper - Vitalik Buterin*
Mining, Forks & Governance
Majority Is Not Enough: Bitcoin Mining Is Vulnerable - Ittay Eyal & Emin Gün Sirer (Paper)*
The Blocksize War: The battle over who controls Bitcoin’s protocol rules - Jonathan Bier (Book)*
The Ether Thief - Matthew Leising (Article)*
Verification & Security
Bitcoin's Security Model: A Deep Dive - Jameson Lopp (Article)*
Bitcoin Programmability
Bitcoin Script: Past and Future - John Newbery (Transcript)*
bitcoin.softforks.org
Scaling Bitcoin
Layer 2
The Importance of Layer 2 - Neha Narula (Blog Post)
The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments - Joseph Poon & Tadge Dryja (Paper)*
Mastering Lightning - Andreas M. Antonopoulos (Book)
Contract Systems & Off-Chain Protocols
Discreet Log Contracts - Tadge Dryja (Paper)
Advanced Scaling Research
Alpen Labs Garbled Circuits (Webpage)*
BitVM: Smarter Bitcoin Contracts - Robin Linus and collaborators (Webpage)*
Ethereum & Smart Contracts
Ethereum Fundamentals
Ethereum: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform - Vitalik Buterin (Paper)*
Ethereum, Smart Contracts, and the World Computer - Vinay Gupta (Article)*
Ethereum Yellow Paper: a formal specification of Ethereum, a programmable blockchain - Gavin Wood*
History of Ethereum Hard Forks (Webpage)
Ethereum Roadmap (Webpage)
Development Resources
Mastering Ethereum - Andreas Antonopoulos et al. (Book)*
Programmability & Smart Contracts
Programmability fundamentals
Programmability in Payments - Wee Kee Toh (Report)
PARSEC: Executing Smart Contracts in Parallel - MIT DCI and FRBB (Paper)
Development Resources
Move (Webpage)
Privacy & Zero-Knowledge Proofs
Privacy Technologies
Confidential Transactions - Greg Maxwell (Article)*
Mimblewimble - Andrew Poelstra (Paper)*
Zerocash - Eli Ben-Sasson et al. (Paper)*
Zcash: The Ceremony - RadioLab (Podcast)*
Security & Adversarial Thinking
Cryptography Risks
Quantum Computing for the Very Curious - Andy Matuschak & Michael Nielsen (Article)*
When the “Crypto” in Cryptocurrencies Breaks - Ilias Giechaskiel et al. (Paper)*
Network Attacks
Eclipse Attacks on Bitcoin's Peer-to-Peer Network - Ethan Heilman et al. (Paper presentation)*
Alternative Systems
Cryptographic Vulnerabilities in IOTA - Neha Narula (Article)
Markets, Incentives & MEV
Understanding MEV (Maximal Extractable Value)
Ethereum MEV and PBS (Webpage)*
Flash Boys 2.0: Frontrunning, Transaction Reordering, and Consensus Instability in Decentralized Exchanges - Philip Daian et al. (Paper)*
Measuring Market Structure
Quantifying Blockchain Extractable Value - Kaihua Qin et al. (Paper)*
Measuring CEX-DEX Extracted Value and Searcher Profitability - Fei Wu et al. (Paper)*
Protocol Design & Incentives
Automated Market Making and Loss-Versus-Rebalancing - Jason Milionis et al. (Paper)*
Centralization in Block Building and Proposer-Builder Separation - Maryam Bahrani et al. (Paper)*
Law, Policy & Financial Privacy
Financial Privacy
A Cypherpunk's Manifesto - Eric Hughes (Article)*
Peanut Butter & Watermelon: Financial Privacy in the Digital Age - Hester Peirce (Transcript)*
A Reckoning Looms for America's 50-Year Financial Surveillance System - Michael J. Casey (Article)*
Regulation & Compliance
Through the Looking Glass: Conceptualizing Control and Analyzing Criminal Liability For Unlicensed Money Transmitting Businesses Under Section 1960 - Daniel Barabander, Amanda Tuminelli & Jake Chervinsky (Paper)*
Genuine DeFi as Critical Infrastructure: A Conceptual Framework for Combating Illicit Finance Activity in Decentralized Finance - Rebecca Rettig, Michael Mosier & Katja Gilman (Paper)*
Landmark Cases
DCI Newsletter
