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Harvard & MIT Workshops To Probe Cryptoledger Technology

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:42 PM
Lester Coleman
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:42 PM

workshop cryptoledgerA group from Harvard and MIT with support from the digital asset nonprofit DATA and the collaborative crowdfunding platform Swarm has organized two collaborative workshops on policy issues around cryptoledger technologies.

The workshops, focusing on addressing the governance gap in the blockchain ecosystem, will span both campuses from Jan. 15 to 18. Convened by Primavera de Filippi of Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, Constance Choi of Seven Advisory and DATA, John Clippinger of ID3 and MIT Media Lab, and Joel Dietz of SWARM, the collaborative workshop is organized into focused working groups of subject matter experts, entrepreneurs and technologists. The contributors will build a living document that may guide policy decisions in developing sound oversight and fostering of blockchain technologies.

“It’s been a pleasure to see a spirit of collaboration emerging,” said de Filippi, “It is what we need most in the Bitcoin 2.0 space and world at large.” Choi stated,

“blockchain requires us to collaboratively reimagine the rules of the legacy world in the context of distributed architecture, with all of its vast potential and perils, and we hope more stakeholders will engage in this foundational groundwork at the next iteration of these workshops at Stanford, as well as another workshop addressing the legal framework for these technologies in Europe.”

Many players in the blockchain ecosystem are participating as well as sponsoring the event, including the new research and advocacy center Coin Center, Perkins Coie, Buckley Sanders, Katten Muchin Rosenman, Robin Hood Cooperative and the Blockchain-powered, crowdfunding platform Swarm.

A final public presentation on the findings of these working groups will be made on Sunday the 18th at 2 p.m. at the MIT Media Lab.

Also read: MIT students experiment with Bitcoin

Keynote Probes Key Questions

The live streamed session will include a keynote address, “How Blockchain is Like or Not Like The Internet,” by Joichi Ito, director of MIT Media Lab, followed by a roundtable discussion on the findings of the workshops. Representatives of various government agencies have been confirmed as attendees, as well as over 40 lawyers and entrepreneurs.

Dietz stated,

“Venture capital was founded with the ideal of collaboration, but a lot of the innovation has disappeared into silos. It’s nice to see the 2.0 space working hard to create shared public goods in an innovative way.”