MIT Digital Currency Initiative introduces at-scale, programmable CBDC platform
PArSEC — short for “parallelized architecture for scalably executing smart contracts” — runs on the ERC-20 standard, so it could have other applications, too.
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Značka: MIT
Universities use blockchain-based storage to protect and democratize data
Decentralized solutions can make academic research more secure and more accessible.
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SEC’s Gensler says BTC, ETH ‘not securities’ in a newly surfaced video
The 2018-era Gensler appeared much more lenient towards certain cryptocurrencies, including Ether.
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Top universities have added crypto to the curriculum
The world of digital assets saw a significant rise last year. The total cryptocurrency market cap reached $3 trillion, making more people, governments and universities take a closer look at the asset class.The presence of crypto in the world’s major economies has created a big opportunity for diverse startups in the industry, leading to a massive demand for digital assets. This newly born market has helped develop more working and educational opportunities, among other things.Furthermore, some of the world’s top universities and educational institutions including MIT, the University of Oxford and Harvard University, have added pieces of the burgeoning technology to their curriculums. Here are some of the top universities that have added blockchain-related subjects to their syllabus.Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyWhen it comes to research, few come close to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT is renowned for its groundbreaking research and competitive academic curriculum and is ranked second only to Harvard University. The institution is, without doubt, the leading university in terms of blockchain technology, taking a research-driven approach to the decentralized ecosystem.The institution boasts of impressive academic staff, with current United States Securities and Exchange Commision Chair Gary Gensler teaching a blockchain course at the university. On-campus, it has one of the oldest Bitcoin (BTC) clubs called the MIT Bitcoin Club, which serves as the epicenter of blockchain discussions at the university.The university famously launched the MIT Digital Currency Experiment back in 2014 and distributed Bitcoin to students in a bid to foster cryptocurrency adoption. The university has gone ahead with its peer-reviewed journal on Blockchain technology to catalog the growing interest of researchers in the field. True to the ethos of decentralization, the journal is distributed freely. Courses offered at the university include: Blockchain Ethics: The Impact and Ethics of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain TechnologyB Digital Frontier: Emerging Blockchain HavensShared Public Ledgers: Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, and Other MarvelsMIT’s Building 10 and Great Dome. Source: MadcoverboyHarvard UniversityHarvard is one of the oldest universities in the United States and has earned a reputation as part of the most prestigious universities in the world. Founded in 1636, the Ivy League college has churned out a record eight U.S. presidents, fourteen Turing Award winners and multiple Nobel laureates.In line with the principles of excellence and innovation, Harvard has added blockchain education to its curriculum. For starters, the university teamed up with Coursera to provide six free courses on cryptocurrencies that cover the fundamentals all the way to intermediate levels. An online introductory course titled “Breakthrough Innovation with Blockchain Technology” explores the combination of AI and blockchain across several industries.Harvard also offers a thriving blockchain student community with over 200 members. Weekly “Crypto 101” discussions are held and the presence of an incubator on the campus allows students to build and scale their cryptocurrency projects. National University of SingaporeSingapore is one of the leading cryptocurrency hubs in Southeast Asia and the National University of Singapore (NUS) is at the core of the crypto adoption. The university was founded in 1905 and its dedication to original research has consistently put it among the leading universities on the continent.The university’s blockchain offering centers strongly around research and entrepreneurship with interesting essays being published on harnessing blockchain for decentralized computing and improving distributed consensus and smart contracts. NUS offers an in-depth blockchain curriculum that cuts across several fields and levels from beginners to CEOs and mid-level managers.The school boasts of courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels with vibrant student-led crypto clubs. Furthermore, these crypto clubs allow students to learn from their peers and publish essays on the use and future of blockchain technologies. Leading courses in the curriculum include: Enterprise Blockchain And DLT for ExecutivesBlockchain, Digital Currencies, And Distributed Ledgers Start From HereUniversity Hall at the National University of Singapore. Source: Joshua Rommel Hayag VargasOxford UniversityOxford University occupies a leading place among world universities and holds the record of being the second-oldest university in operation. The English university ranks as having the largest university press and the largest academic library system that sets it apart from its peers. In terms of blockchain, Oxford is one of the leading centers of learning for the new technology in Europe, thanks to an expansive research center. The blockchain research center has produced a litany of interesting blockchain essays, with the Oxford-Hainan Blockchain Research Institute recording significant strides.Oxford Foundry, the university’s entrepreneurship hub, has struck interesting partnerships with Ripple to facilitate a wider blockchain technology. The university has a vibrant student-run community called the Oxford Blockchain Society that competes favorably with its contemporaries in other institutions. In terms of learning, the university has one of the most comprehensive blockchain learning. Top courses include:Blockchain Software Engineering Blockchain For ManagersOxford Blockchain Strategy ProgramCornell UniversityCornell University was founded in 1865 and has carved a niche for itself as one of the leading research universities in the world. The university is among the top five schools with graduates going on to pursue their PhDs and with an average of over $500 million spent annually on research and development, it’s easy to see why.The university boasts an impressive alumni list that includes 33 Rhodes Scholars, 10 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and 35 billionaires. Cornell University also offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses focused on blockchain technology. The caliber of the academic staff is impressive and made up of persons like Emin Gun Sirer, with multiple papers presented at blockchain conferences as far back as 2014.Students from the university have secured roles in leading blockchain firms like Coinbase and ConsenSys through the help of the Cornell Blockchain Club. The club is student-run and has gone on to publish interesting papers on blockchain technology and famously hosted its annual conference with an impressive lineup of speakers from the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Courses offered at the university include:Cryptocurrencies and LedgersApplications of Blockchain TechnologyIntroductions to Blockchains, Cryptocurrencies, and Smart Contracts Cryptography EssentialsThe Arts Quad with McGraw Tower at Cornell University. Source: EustressUniversity of California, BerkeleyFounded in 1868, the University of California, Berkeley is a leading institution for blockchain enthusiasts. The university’s diversity is evident in its fourteen colleges and over 350-degree programs that it offers to thousands of students. Research is one of the core reasons why the university makes the list as it has one of the longest streaks of blockchain research. The Berkeley Haas Blockchain Initiative is the main driver of blockchain research and is largely funded by Ripple Labs. Research grants are made available to students to dive deep into the applications of the nascent technology, with particular progress being made in the areas of stablecoins.The university also offers a “Blockchain Fundamentals Professional Certificate Program” through the online education platform edX. In terms of curriculum, the University of California, Berkeley offers students an expansive blockchain offering that includes:Lattices: Algorithms, Complexity, and CryptographyBlockchain, Cryptoeconomics, and the Future of Technology, Business and LawBlockchain Fundamentals
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Bank of Canada collaborating with MIT on CBDC research
The Bank of Canada has partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to work on a 12 month research project focused on the design of a Central Bank Digital Currency. According to a March 16 announcement, the bank will work alongside the MIT Media Labs’ Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) team to examine how “advanced technologies could affect the potential design of a CBDC.” The Bank of Canada stated that the project is part of a broader development agenda on digital currencies, fintech and how CBDCs could work in a Canadian context. It cautions that “no decision has been made on whether to introduce a CBDC in Canada,” but said it would provide an update once the research project has been completed. This is not the MIT DCI’s first partnership with a bank for CBDC research, with Cointelegraph reporting earlier at the start of February that it had published research on the topic in collaboration with The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Dubbed “Project Hamilton,” it tested a “hypothetical general purpose CBDC” using two potential models, including distributed ledger technology (DLT) and processing transactions in parallel on multiple computers, rather than relying on a single ordering server to prevent double-spending. CBDCs — memorably described by Asset Strategies International president Rich Checkan as being “concocted in hell by Satan himself” andwith Edward Snowden warning about the implications for privacy and freedom — have been grabbing the headlines of late. In terms of the U.S. President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets outlines that his administration will place “the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options” of U.S.-based CBDC. Related: Blockchain Association policy head: US shouldn’t compete with China’s CBDC using surveillance toolsThe Executive Order also directs the Secretary of the Treasury and other relevant officials to produce a research report on a local CBDC, while the attorney general has also been tasked with leading an effort to “to assess any necessary legislative changes” required for a CBDC and to promptly develop a legislative proposal afterward.
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MIT, Boston Fed give digital dollar CBDC a modest test run
The world recently got a sneak peek at what a digital dollar, or at least one component of a hypothetical United States central bank digital currency (CBDC), might look like, courtesy of Project Hamilton, a collaborative effort of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the MIT Digital Currency Initiative. The results of the project’s first phase were originally expected last summer but were released on Feb. 3. The project, announced in 2020, is named in honor of Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury secretary, and Margaret Hamilton, an MIT staffer who contributed to NASA’s Apollo program.Researchers developed two open-source models of transaction processing software, called OpenCBDC, for the “technology-agnostic” project. The researchers note in the project’s white paper that “technical and policy choices are highly interdependent and that these choices are more granular and with more permutations than commonly discussed.” Only one of the models used distributed ledger technology, and it turned out to be the less satisfactory solution, with the technology described as “not needed.” The distributed ledger model was “not a good match” for the project due to its performance. The project assumed administration by a central actor, and the model was modified accordingly. However, it created performance bottlenecks, and the requirement that the central transaction processor maintain transaction history slowed throughput significantly. The alternative model’s two-phase commit architecture supported “a range of potential privacy options” without central storage of transaction history, although the researchers acknowledged that it presented greater challenges for auditing.The distributed ledger model had a peak throughput of approximately 170,000 transactions per second, while the competing model, which processed transactions in parallel on multiple computers, had a throughput of 1.7 million transactions per second and showed linear scalability with the addition of more servers.The second, and apparently last, phase of Project Hamilton will “determine technical and performance tradeoffs associated with various designs.” Researchers have promised to look at “privacy, auditability, programmability, interoperability, and more.” Boston Fed Executive Vice President Jim Cunha said in a press call that “We’ll be defining a number of use cases that focus on different design and possibly policy questions,” adding: “For example, if one policy goal was to maximize privacy, and the other is to stop criminal activity, those create conflicts from a technology perspective in how you design the system.”The release of the Hamilton Project Phase 1 results comes simultaneously with China’s attempt to scale up its rollout of the digital yuan at the Winter Olympics. The contrast between the United States’ and China’s level of CBDC development could not be starker, and those behind Project Hamilton took pains not to overstate the project’s place in American CBDC development. MIT Digital Currency Initiative director Neha Narula said in a statement, “It is important to note that this project is not a comment on whether or not the U.S. should issue a CBDC — but work like this is vital to help determine the answer to that question.” She added, “The policy conversation around central bank digital currency is still in its infancy.” The scattershot nature of that conversation is apparent at a glance. The Fed steadfastly refuses to take a stance on a CBDC, reiterating its neutral position in a paper released last month. The same week, Representative Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, introduced a bill to prohibit the Fed from issuing a retail CBDC, claiming such a law would keep the Fed off an “insidious path” toward authoritarianism. Not long afterward, Bank of America issued a note calling a CBDC “inevitable.” The Fed is welcoming comments on Project Hamilton via an online form with 22 questions. The project is also hiring a new product management director.
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Fed and MIT's CBDC research: Distributed Ledger tech has ‘downsides’
Theoretical research into a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in the U.S. has found that distributed ledger architecture has “downsides.” The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Digital Currency Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published their findings of their initial research into a CBDC on Feb 3. The research project, dubbed “Project Hamilton,” tested a “hypothetical general purpose CBDC” using two potential models. The first one processed transactions through “ordering server” distributed ledger technology (DLT), which organized the validated transactions into blocks to create an ordered transaction history. The researchers were able to use this architecture to complete over 99% of transactions in under two seconds and the majority of transactions in under 0.7 seconds.However, the ordering server resulted in a number of issues due to being run under the control of a single actor, the researchers concluding that “a distributed ledger architecture has downsides. ““For example, it creates performance bottlenecks, and requires the central transaction processor to maintain transaction history, which one of our designs does not, resulting in significantly improved transaction throughput scalability properties.”They added that despite using ideas from blockchain technology, a “distributed ledger operating under the jurisdiction of different actors was not needed.”The second architecture processed transactions in parallel on multiple computers, rather than relying on a single ordering server to prevent double spends. The researchers wrote that although “this results in superior scalability,” it did not “materialize an ordered history for all transactions.”It demonstrated throughput of 1.7 million transactions per second with 99% of transactions durably completing in under a second, and the majority of transactions completing in under half a second. Related: Fed issues discussion paper on benefits and risks of a digital dollarProject Hamilton was first announced in 2020 to explore the use of existing and new technologies to build and test a hypothetical digital currency platform. The code is the first contribution to OpenCBDC, a project maintained by MIT which will serve as a platform for further CBDC research. Boston Fed Executive Vice President and Interim Chief Operating Officer Jim Cunha said that the project illustrates that it is “critical” for change makers to not only understand how emerging technologies could support a potential CBDC, but also what challenges remain. “This collaboration between MIT and our technologists has created a scalable CBDC research model that allows us to learn more about these technologies and the choices that should be considered when designing a CBDC.”The director of the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT Neha Narula said that “there are still many remaining challenges in determining whether or how to adopt a central bank payment system for the United States.”
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Universities including Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Oxford to form EduDAO to promote Web 3 innovations, financed by BitDAO treasury
On Thursday, BitDAO, one of the world’s largest decentralized autonomous organizations with over $2.5 billion assets under management, and its partner Mirana ventures announced the creation of EduDAO with eight of the world’s top universities including University of California Berkeley, MIT, Harvard and Oxford University.EduDAO is financed by the BitDAO treasury, and will allocate $11 million in funding each year project grants, research, and standalone product development with $33 million in initial capital. The funds will go to academic research for next-generation blockchain and Web 3 technologies.EduDAO is financed by the BitDAO treasury, and will allocate $11 million in funding each year project grants, research, and standalone product development with $33 million in initial capital. The funds will go to academic research for next-generation blockchain and Web 3 technologies.Roman Ugarte and Virat Talwar, co-presidents of the Harvard Blockchain Club, said: “Placing the power of targeted funding and information distribution in the hands of a decentralized collective of students, faculty members, and alumni is a revolutionary step forward for institutions such as Harvard.”Jocelyn Weber Phipps, UC Berkeley’s Deputy Director for RDI [Responsible Decentralized Intelligence], added:UC Berkeley is honored to partner with EducationDAO and further build on our new Berkeley RDI Center’s efforts to act as a hub and platform for collaborations globally with other organizations & researchers, as exemplified in leading the first DeFi MOOC with thousands of students enrolled from 30+ countries and our non-dilutive Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator open to teams around the world.
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