Tag: Mit

Jack Dorsey’s Block Appoints MIT’s Neha Narula to Board of Directors

by Blockchain News

Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ), a global technology company with a focus on financial services, announced on July 27, 2023, the appointment of Neha Narula, Director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, to its Board of Directors. This move further solidifies Block’s commitment to leveraging open source software and open protocols to transform the way people move money.

Narula, who has been serving as the Director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab since January 2017, brings a wealth of expertise in Bitcoin and open source technology to the board.

Prior to joining MIT, she held a position as a senior software engineer at Google. Narula also currently serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Innovation Advisory Council. Her academic credentials include a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Dartmouth College and a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT.

“I’ve long admired Block’s focus on building simple, cohesive products that empower people and communities to participate in the financial system,” said Narula. “We share core values around the power of open source software and the ability for open protocols to transform the way people move money. I’m honored and excited to join Block’s board of directors and contribute to the company’s purpose of economic empowerment.”

Block’s Head and Chairman, Jack Dorsey, expressed his enthusiasm about Narula’s appointment, stating, “Neha’s expertise in Bitcoin and open source technology is a great addition to our Board. Neha’s passion for building intuitive, scaled systems to move money across the Internet efficiently fits into our company’s purpose, and we’re excited to have her join our team.”

Block, Inc., formerly known as Square, Inc., is composed of Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, and TBD. The company is dedicated to creating tools that expand access to the economy. Its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services helps sellers run and grow their businesses.

With Cash App, anyone can easily send, spend, or invest their money in stocks or Bitcoin. Spiral builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects, while TIDAL provides a platform for musicians and their fans to connect more deeply. TBD is building an open developer platform to make it easier to access Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies without having to go through an institution.

Narula’s appointment to the board is expected to further enhance Block’s mission of economic empowerment through the use of open source software and open protocols.

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Crypto.com Backs MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative With a 4-Year Partnerhship

by Blockchain News

Singapore-based digital currency trading platform, Crypto.com, has announced the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) support at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Media Lab.

CRY.C2.jpg

As announced by the company, the support is a gift of a 4-year-based partnership whose monetary value was undisclosed. 

The backing will help foster the research into the Bitcoin network while also digging into the protocol’s security as well as its underlying innovations. Per the defined goals of the support, Crypto.com said the gift is “designed to support continuing research efforts into the stability of fee-based rewards and software to provide strong robustness and correctness guarantees.”

“MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative is playing a critical role in building a sustainable blockchain ecosystem, in particular by fortifying Bitcoin’s underlying protocol,” said Eric Anziani, Chief Operating Officer at Crypto.com. “We are excited to further support blockchain research across the globe with such an esteemed institution and help accelerate the world’s safe transition to using cryptocurrencies.”

The entire backing of research initiatives notably aligns with Crypto.com’s efforts in related moves, which it publishes on a monthly basis in collaboration with members of academia. The exchange’s focus on pushing forth blockchain and crypto innovation spans other universities beyond MIT. The trading platform also backs the “Secure Blockchain Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, advancing on-chain safety.”

“Our research has shown over and over again that from Brazil to Australia, high-security standards are one of the top criteria for choosing crypto products,” added Dr. Henry Hon, Head of Research at Crypto.com, adding that  “DCI’s research focuses on the security of one of the most widely adopted coins on the planet, a goal we want to support.”

Over time, trading platforms have assumed to advance crypto education in a bid to foster massive mainstream adoption across the board. From the launch of its app in several languages, including Turkish, to the partnership with regional tech startups, Crypto.com has continued to play a forerunner role in digital currency adoption worldwide.

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Crypto.com Backs MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative With a 4-Year Partnerhship

by Blockchain News

Singapore-based digital currency trading platform, Crypto.com, has announced the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) support at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Media Lab.

CRY.C2.jpg

As announced by the company, the support is a gift of a 4-year-based partnership whose monetary value was undisclosed. 

The backing will help foster the research into the Bitcoin network while also digging into the protocol’s security as well as its underlying innovations. Per the defined goals of the support, Crypto.com said the gift is “designed to support continuing research efforts into the stability of fee-based rewards and software to provide strong robustness and correctness guarantees.”

“MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative is playing a critical role in building a sustainable blockchain ecosystem, in particular by fortifying Bitcoin’s underlying protocol,” said Eric Anziani, Chief Operating Officer at Crypto.com. “We are excited to further support blockchain research across the globe with such an esteemed institution and help accelerate the world’s safe transition to using cryptocurrencies.”

The entire backing of research initiatives notably aligns with Crypto.com’s efforts in related moves, which it publishes on a monthly basis in collaboration with members of academia. The exchange’s focus on pushing forth blockchain and crypto innovation spans other universities beyond MIT. The trading platform also backs the “Secure Blockchain Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, advancing on-chain safety.”

“Our research has shown over and over again that from Brazil to Australia, high-security standards are one of the top criteria for choosing crypto products,” added Dr. Henry Hon, Head of Research at Crypto.com, adding that  “DCI’s research focuses on the security of one of the most widely adopted coins on the planet, a goal we want to support.”

Over time, trading platforms have assumed to advance crypto education in a bid to foster massive mainstream adoption across the board. From the launch of its app in several languages, including Turkish, to the partnership with regional tech startups, Crypto.com has continued to play a forerunner role in digital currency adoption worldwide.

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Crypto.com Backs MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative With a 4-Year Gift

by Blockchain News

Singapore-based digital currency trading platform, Crypto.com, has announced the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) support at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Media Lab.

CRY.C2.jpg

As announced by the company, the support is a gift of a 4-year-based partnership whose monetary value was undisclosed. 

The backing will help foster the research into the Bitcoin network while also digging into the protocol’s security as well as its underlying innovations. Per the defined goals of the support, Crypto.com said the gift is “designed to support continuing research efforts into the stability of fee-based rewards and software to provide strong robustness and correctness guarantees.”

“MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative is playing a critical role in building a sustainable blockchain ecosystem, in particular by fortifying Bitcoin’s underlying protocol,” said Eric Anziani, Chief Operating Officer at Crypto.com. “We are excited to further support blockchain research across the globe with such an esteemed institution and help accelerate the world’s safe transition to using cryptocurrencies.”

The entire backing of research initiatives notably aligns with Crypto.com’s efforts in related moves, which it publishes on a monthly basis in collaboration with members of academia. The exchange’s focus on pushing forth blockchain and crypto innovation spans other universities beyond MIT. The trading platform also backs the “Secure Blockchain Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, advancing on-chain safety.”

“Our research has shown over and over again that from Brazil to Australia, high-security standards are one of the top criteria for choosing crypto products,” added Dr. Henry Hon, Head of Research at Crypto.com, adding that  “DCI’s research focuses on the security of one of the most widely adopted coins on the planet, a goal we want to support.”

Over time, trading platforms have assumed to advance crypto education in a bid to foster massive mainstream adoption across the board. From the launch of its app in several languages, including Turkish, to the partnership with regional tech startups, Crypto.com has continued to play a forerunner role in digital currency adoption worldwide.

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Bank of England Teams up with MIT on CBDC Research Project

by Blockchain News

To delve deeper into the opportunities, risks, trade-offs, and potential technical challenges faced when developing a CBDC system, the Bank of England (BoE) has joined hands Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on a year-long research project. 

In a statement, the Bank of England pointed out that the project aimed to explore the underlying technology and not create an operational central bank digital currency (CBDC). Per the announcement:

“The collaboration forms part of the Bank’s wider ‘research and exploration’ into CBDC, and will be focused on exploration and experimentation of potential technology approaches.”

The partnership will involve England’s apex bank with the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI). 

The BoE follows in the footsteps of the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston as research partners with the DCI.

However, a decision has not been made on whether to roll out a CBDC in the United Kingdom, given that it would be a significant national infrastructural project.

The financial regulator recently announced the first regulatory framework for crypto assets based on their rapid growth.

CBDCs have emerged as a hot topic in the modern era based on the technological innovations being witnessed in the financial system.

Hiromi Yamaoka, a former Bank of Japan executive, recently suggested that the sanctions slapped on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine might prompt more nations to adopt CBDCs as a shield against the U.S. dollar’s supremacy in the global financial system.

Yamaoka added that national security and defence would become key issues when discussing CBDCs. 

Earlier this month, the University of Cambridge, through the Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance (CCAF), rolled out a multi-year research initiative with 16 key financial institutions like the WorldBank, IMF, and MasterCard to shed more light on the rapidly evolving crypto-asset ecosystem, with CBDCs being one of the areas of interest. 

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MIT Sees Ethereum’s PoS as Game Changing Tech

by Blockchain News

Ranked sixth among the top 10 technological breakthroughs of 2022, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) views Ethereum’s proof of stake (PoS) consensus mechanism as a game-changer that will prompt the adoption of energy-saving technology. 

Per the announcement:

“Proof of stake offers a way to set up such a network without requiring so much energy. And if all goes as planned, Ethereum, which runs all sorts of applications in addition to the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, will transition to it in the first half of 2022. The shift has been projected to cut energy use by 99.95%.”

The MIT acknowledged that Ethereum’s PoS framework would be instrumental in changing the narrative about cryptocurrencies using vast amounts of electricity. For instance, Bitcoin (BTC) used more energy than Finland last year.

Ethereum 2.0, recently renamed to the consensus layer, was launched in December 2020 to transition a PoS framework from the current proof of work (PoW) consensus algorithm.

Since then, it has gained steam as more investments continue trickling in, given that the number of validators recently hit 300,000 and staked Ether crossed the 9.5 million mark. 

With “The Merge” slated for the second quarter of this year, MIT noted that Ethereum’s transition would become the centre stage of triggering energy-efficient technology even though other networks like Solana, Cardano, and Algorand are already using PoS blockchains. 

The report noted:

“With proof of stake, validators don’t have to vie against one another, spending big on energy and computing hardware. Instead, their cache, or stake, of cryptocurrency allows them to enter a lottery. Those who are chosen to gain the authority to verify a set of transactions (and so earn more cryptocurrency).”

The other top ten breakthrough technologies included Covid variant tracking, a long-lasting grid battery, artificial intelligence (AI) for protein folding, and malaria vaccine, per the MIT Review. 

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Federal Reserve and MIT Begin Developing a New Digital Dollar

by Dailyhodl

The United States Federal Reserve and researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are collaborating on a central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative called Project Hamilton.

Project Hamilton has now tested a digital dollar that the Fed claims can process 1,700,000 transactions per second.

According to the project’s whitepaper,

“Our primary goal was to design a core transaction processor that meets the robust speed, throughput, and fault tolerance requirements of a large retail payment system. Our secondary goal was to create a flexible platform for collaboration, data gathering, comparison with multiple architectures, and other future research. With this intent, we are releasing all software from our research publicly under the MIT open source license.”

Phase 1 of the project sought to implement two different digital dollar architectures which address the performance, resiliency, and flexibility problems associated with CBDCs.

“The first idea is to decouple transaction validation from execution, which enables us to use a data structure that stores very little data in the core transaction processor. It also makes it easier to scale parts of the system independently. The second idea is a transaction format and protocol that is secure and provides flexibility for potential functionality like self-custody and future programmability. The third idea is a system design and commit protocol that efficiently executes these transactions, which we implemented with two architectures.

Both architectures met and exceeded our speed and throughput requirements.”

According to the project whitepaper, phase 1 of the project highlighted key insights into digital dollar design.

“Select ideas from cryptography, distributed systems, and blockchain technology can provide unique functionality and robust performance…

CBDC design choices are more granular than commonly assumed…

[And] by implementing a robust system, we identify new questions for CBDC designers and policymakers to address, regarding tradeoffs in performance, auditability, functionality, and privacy.”

Project Hamilton now plans to move to Phase 2, which will explore alternative technical designs from a wide range of research topics.

“Research topics may include cryptographic designs for privacy and auditability, programmability and smart contracts, offline payments, secure issuance and redemption, new use cases and access models, techniques for maintaining open access while protecting against denial of service attacks, and new tools for enacting policy.”

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Fed and MIT’s CBDC research: Distributed Ledger tech has ‘downsides’

by Cointelegraph

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 dollar

Project 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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Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, MIT Publish CBDC Research

by Cryptobriefing

Key Takeaways

  • The Boston Fed, M.I.T.-run Project Hamilton has published its Phase One results.

  • Project Hamilton is an effort to conduct research and build technology for a central bank digital currency.

  • While the project is not directly building a USDC that would be usable in the U.S., it seeks to inform policy decisions with respect to CBDC technology.


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The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have published the results from Phase One of Project Hamilton, a multi-year collaborative research endeavor focused on CBDC research. 

Phase One Complete

Earlier today, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and MIT published the results of Phase One of Project Hamilton, a collaborative effort to research and design a workable prototype for a CBDC that could scale to a nation the size of the United States.

It should be emphasized that no branch of the United States government has ordered the creation or implementation of a formal CBDC. However, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston does fall under the authority of the Federal Reserve System.



Phase One sought to build a transaction processing software, dubbed OpenCBDC, that was sufficiently technically sound to function as a “general-purpose CBDC” for a nation as large as the U.S. The Boston Fed and MIT have released OpenCBDC as open-source software on GitHub.

In regard to building a core processing engine that could support a CBDC, the “team met its goal”: speeds surpassed 1.7 million transactions per second, with the “vast majority” reaching settlement finality within two seconds. The paper also reads that the technology possesses flexibility that would allow it to be adjusted depending on policy decisions. 

The Boston Fed is responsible for the First District of the Federal Reserve. While the research is conducted independently of the Federal Reserve Board of Governor’s deliberations, Project Hamilton does seek to inform and enrich policy decisions surrounding a United States’ central bank digital currency. Moreover, the Fed itself does have a TechLab that also conducts CBDC research and experimentation. 


User privacy is one of the project’s stated priorities when it comes to its design, though the language used suggests the privacy consideration is primarily focused on protecting users’ from third parties. 

In Phase Two, the Boston Fed and MIT will research other technical designs to further optimize the Phase One technology’s “robust privacy, resiliency, and functionality,” while better elucidating tradeoffs between different designs. This phase will take years. 

Project Hamilton was named after two Hamiltons: Alexander Hamilton, the U.S.’s first Treasury Secretary and primary founder of the Bank of the United States (a precursor to the Federal Reserve); and Margaret Hamilton, an engineering software director for MIT’s Instrumentation Lab that built software for NASA’s Apollo mission. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and several other cryptocurrencies. 

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Universities including Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Oxford to form EduDAO to promote Web 3 innovations, financed by BitDAO treasury

by Cointelegraph

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.