Another key step in making Bitcoin going mainstream…
Okay, probably it is not the Bitcoin itself that is going to be mainstream, but digital currencies are here to stay. “Digital currencies like Bitcoin are poised to make a dramatic impact on most people’s lives over the next decade”, says former White Hous advisor Brian Forde. Forde is appointed as Director of the Digital Currency Initiative that is launched by the MIT Media Lab this week.
Bringing together global experts
The goal of the initiative is to bring together global experts in areas ranging from cryptography, to economics, to privacy, to distributed systems, to take on this important new area of research. The effort will reach across the MIT campus, and aims to include collaborations with leading experts around the world. Some of the more experienced names involved will be MIT CSAIL’s Nickolai Zeldovich and Sloan School of Management’s Simon Johnson, who was the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Forde hypothesized that by engaging such participants in the development of digital currency, the campus could ensure that the technology is able to bring about a new wave of innovation.
Ambitions
According to Forde, the initiative has three goals:
- Conduct research and engage more students on digital currency topics that address questions about security, stability, scalability, privacy, and economics.
- Convene governments, nonprofits, and the private sector to research and test concepts that have high social impact.
- Provide evidence-based research to support existing and future policy and standards.
Read more on Forde’s post.
Image credit: Giles Douglas, Flickr
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