Neha Narula, director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative, joins Taylor Wilson of USA Today’s The Excerpt podcast to discuss the future of cash as the use of digital currencies expands. On her vision for the future of money, Narula says, “We’ve had a lot of promise, we’ve had a lot of exciting ideas, but now it’s time to really buckle down and really build products that help users and help make their lives better.”
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried ‘14 speaks with Bloomberg reporter Zeke Faux about his work in cryptocurrency and the influence of the effective-altruism movement in his philanthropic work. Bankman-Fried explains that he plans to “keep enough money to maintain a comfortable life," writes Faux. “Other than that, he still plans to give it all away – every dollar, or Bitcoin, as the case may be.”
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that China’s ban on cryptocurrencies sent the process of creating new coins to other locations in the world that use less renewable energy, reports Hiroko Tabuchi for The New York Times. The researchers found that “Bitcoin miners lost their access to hydropower from regions within China that had powered their computers with cheap, plentiful, renewable energy during the wet summer months.”
A new study co-authored by Prof. Antoinette Schoar finds that the “top Bitcoin holders control a greater share of the cryptocurrency than the most affluent American households control in dollars,” reports Paul Vigna for The Wall Street Journal. “Despite having been around for 14 years and the hype it has ratcheted up, it’s still the case that it’s a very concentrated ecosystem,” explains Schoar.
Prof. Antoinette Schoar and Igor Makarov of the London School of Economics conducted a new study that mapped out every Bitcoin transaction since 2008, reports Fortune reporter Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez. “According to the study, 90% of Bitcoin transactions are not a result of a user buying something with the currency, but rather transactions between a single user’s own crypto accounts,” writes Quiroz-Gutierrez.
Gizmodo reporter Mack DeGeurin writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that just .01% of Bitcoin buyers control around 27% of the 19 million cryptocurrency in circulation. “This tiny concentration of so much wealth means the Bitcoin rich will likely only get richer if the cryptocurrency continues to increase in value,” DeGeurin writes. “It also means power is less dispersed, which could make Bitcoin more susceptible to systemic risk.”
Researchers from MIT and the Berklee College of Music “have started a blockchain platform called RAIDAR, designed to help musicians connect with potential clients (perhaps filmmakers or video game designers who need theme music) and get paid for their work without losing ownership,” reports Newsweek.
Gizmodo reporter Tom McKay explores a new report co-authored by Prof. Antoinette Schoar and Igor Makarov of the London School of Economics, which reveals that 10,000 individual investors control one-third of the Bitcoins in circulation. This “inherent concentration makes Bitcoin susceptible to systemic risk and also implies that the majority of the gains from further adoption are likely to fall disproportionately to a small set of participants,” the researchers explain.
MIT has been named one of the top 20 universities in the world for studying cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, reports Taylor Locke for CNBC.
Fortune reporter Shawn Tully writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that examines the amount of e-waste Bitcoin generates. The researchers found that: “In 2020, the Bitcoin network processed 120 million transactions,” writes Tully. “For every sale or purchase recorded on the blockchain, the miners disposed of e-waste equal in weight to two iPhone 12 Minis. In other words, the industry trashed the equivalent of 240 million of the 135 gram mobile devices.”
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that “a single bitcoin transaction generates the same amount of electronic waste as throwing two iPhones in the bin,” reports Alex Hern for The Guardian.
CNBC reporter Dain Evans writes about how researchers from MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative and the Federal Reserve of Boston are exploring what a digital currency might look like in America. “I think that if there is a digital dollar, privacy is going to be a very, very important part of that,” says Neha Narula, director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab.
A study by researchers from MIT and the Technical University of Munich finds that Bitcoin’s annual carbon emissions are equivalent to those of a city or small nation, reports the Xinhua news agency. “The cryptocurrency is imposing [an] increasing burden on global climate since the computing capacity required to solve a Bitcoin puzzle increased more than fourfold in 2018.”
Researchers from seven universities, including MIT, have teamed up to create “a digital currency that they hope can achieve speeds Bitcoin users can only dream of without compromising on its core tenant of decentralization,” reports Alastair Marsh for Bloomberg News.
Camila Russo of Bloomberg reports on Gary Gensler’s comments at MIT Technology Review’s Business of Blockchain conference. Gensler, a visiting lecturer at Sloan and former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said many cryptocurrenciers “are operating outside of U.S. laws.”