The Future of Our Money - Centering Users in the Design of Digital Currency
What will it take for decentralized networks to realize our vision of a radically improved financial system that protects user privacy and increases user agency? In addition to DCI’s focus on open source development and neutral research into the privacy, security, and scalability of decentralized networks, we also believe it will require a robust awareness of the people inside and outside the traditional financial system, their needs, and their perspectives on digital currency’s potential.
That’s why we collaborated with Maiden, a non-profit user-research lab, to surface user insights that can inform our work as technologists as well as contribute to the public policy dialogues surrounding digital currencies. We completed a US-based user-research study, addressing some of the riskiest and most-common assumptions about prospective digital currency users and use cases.
People:
Project Leadership
Shira Frank, Director, Maiden Labs
Dr. Neha Narula, Director, MIT Digital Currency Initiative (DCI):
Report Authors
Erin Gjefle, Maiden Labs
Zach Herring, Maiden Labs
Cris Kubli, Maiden Labs
Brennan O’Rear, Maiden Labs
Georgia Rakusen, Maiden Labs
Additional Contributors
CultureCraft (design), Mia Herring (project management), Ray Reichenberg (quantitative analysis), Melissa K. Wrapp (methodology review), Chichi Wu (data and executive assistance), Sumedha Deshmukh, Julie Frizzo-Barker, Robin Marlowe, and Reuben Youngblom (copy editing and review)
Funders
MIT Digital Currency Initiative with contributions from Citi Ventures, Google, and PayPal