"DCI Working Groups: the blockchain sandbox at MIT" On Medium by DCI's Alin Dragos
Our MIT motto, mens et manus, is a call-to-action to be more than mere technologists and to learn (by doing!) how to be thoughtful makers of a better world. The Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) Working Group Program creates a sandbox for interdisciplinary teams of students to hack on pressing topics in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Students from the Blockchain Lab will collaborate with instructors, companies and DCI to investigate uses of blockchain technology and how to integrate it into viable business models.
Coin Rivet's 'Single Lightning Network node routes record number of Satoshis in a day'
A Lightning Network node hosted by Satoshi Labs successfully routed one Bitcoin worth of Lightning transactions in a 24-hour period
Coindesk's 'This Scaling Tech Could Let You Sync Bitcoin Straight From Your Phone' using UTreeXO created by Tadge Dryja
“Maybe we don’t have to store everything ourselves.”
That’s Tadge Dryja, cryptocurrency research scientist at the MIT Digital Currency Initiative, explaining the concept behind his bitcoin scaling solution, “utreexo.”
Coindesk's 'Bitcoin at 10[years old]': From Fearing Bitcoin To Fixing Its Worst Problem: Tadge Dryja
A celebration of 10 years of Bitcoin features DCI's Tadge Dryja story:
““I thought I would go to jail.”
That’s why Tadge Dryja, one of two principal researchers who would go on to envision lightning – what has become arguably the most important innovation in the quest to bring bitcoin to the masses – kept his passion for the technology to himself when he first heard about it in 2011.”
WGBH News: More local ATMs Will Soon Dispense 'Cryptocurrencies' - Arun Rath Interviews DCI's Director Neha Narula and Others
DCI’s Director Neha Narula was interviewed by WGBH on the topic of how making cryptocurrency mainstream is beneficial to the general public, by using more tangible methods.
DCI Director interviewed for The Wall Street Journal: "Winklevosses’ Cryptocurrency Exchange Says the ‘Revolution Needs Rules’" By Nat Ives
DCI’s Director Neha Narula commented on ‘Gemini Trust ad campaign calling for new regulations’ in an article for The Wall Street Journal
Introducing DCI's New Podcast: Grey Mirror
In this episode: Tadge Dryja, a research scientist at DCI who co-invented the Lightning Network. We chat about his current research (uTreeXO, a dynamic accumulator for Bitcoin state) and discuss non-fork ways to bootstrap upgrades to a network (a bridge node for uTreeXO).
Cryptocurrency Research Review
Introducing the first issue of the DCI’s Cryptocurrency Research Review. Read it here
Michael Casey's "Vertcoin’s Struggle Is Real: Why the Latest Crypto 51% Attack Matters"
You may not have heard of Vertcoin, a crypto project designed to curtail concentration in mining power in the interests of broad-based participation. But if you care about security, decentralization and open access for cryptocurrencies, then the questions raised by a recent breach of its blockchain will matter to you.
Wired 25: Neha Narula and Alexis Ohanian say it's Early Days yet for Cryptocurrency
By KLINT FINLEY 10.15.18 07:36 PM Wired.com
Full article here
Today at the WIRED25 Summit, Neha Narula and Alexis Ohanian talked about some of the ways blockchain, the decentralized ledger technology at the heart of bitcoin and other "cryptocurrencies," could press forward through the current slump and actually become useful.
WIRED25: The Future of Cryptocurrency - MIT Media Lab's Neha Narula and Reddit's Alexis Ohanian On What's Ahead
MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative Director Neha Narula spoke with WIRED’s Brian Barrett as part of WIRED25, WIRED’s 25th anniversary celebration in San Francisco.
Utreexo: A dynamic accumulator for Bitcoin state - A description of research by Thaddeus Dryja
One of the earliest-seen and most persistent problems with Bitcoin has been scalability. Bitcoin takes the idea of "be your own bank" quite literally, with every computer on the bitcoin network storing every account of every user who owns money in the system. In Bitcoin, this is stored as a collection of "Unspent transaction outputs", or "utxo"s, which are somewhat unintuitive, but provide privacy and efficiency benefits over the alternative "account" based model used in traditional finance.
Static-Memory-Hard Functions, and Modeling the Cost of Space vs. Time
By Thaddeus Dryja, Quanquan C. Liu and Sunoo Park
Static-Memory-Hard Functions, and Modeling the Cost of Space vs. Time was presented at the Cryptography Conference 2019, which is organized by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR).
Responsible disclosure in the era of cryptocurrencies
DCI Bitcoin Core developer Cory Fields shares his experience disclosing a critical Bitcoin Cash vulnerability.
Cellular structure for a digital fiat currency
This paper by DCI Reserach Scientist Robleh Ali sets out a structure for a digital fiat currency system. The primary benefit of the cellular structure is that it lowers barriers to entry for payments by using trustless intermediation between cells in the system. The larger purpose of this structure is to create an open foundation for a decentralized financial system in which competition can thrive but which cannot be captured by private interests.
Does Your Supply Chain Need a Blockchain?
Many new digital technologies at various stages of development hold promise for manufacturers and the supply chain. The challenge for management teams is knowing which technologies to invest in—and when. Case in point: blockchain technology. Once seemingly at the far end of the time horizon, blockchains are suddenly poised for rapid growth. Why? Because they offer a solution to the growing problem of how to manage increasingly complicated networks of manufacturers and suppliers at a time when transparency, speed, and agility are critical.
Another perspective on cryptocurrency regulation
This week our colleague Gary Gensler was profiled in The New York Times talking about how Ethereum and Ripple should be classified as securities. DCI director Neha Narula continues the conversation about how cryptocurrencies and tokens should be regulated.
The problem with ICOs is that they’re called ICOs
The MIT Technology review interviews Robleh Ali, former manager of digital currency for the Bank of England, now research scientist at the MIT Digital Currency Initiative, on why initial coin offerings are dangerous and how to make them more useful.
A Former Top Wall Street Regulator Turns to the Blockchain
From the New York Times, Nathaniel Popper profiles DCI Senior Advisor Gary Gensler, former chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission ahead of his statements on the regulation of cryptocurrencies to be made at the Business of Blockchain Conference.