[Ssc-dev] MIT Digital Currency Initative!

[Nathan of Guardian]

Perhaps we can make our InformaCam Bitcoin Media Notary project a MIT
Media Lab + WITNESS supported effort, with Joi's support?

https://github.com/harlo/CVNotary
https://github.com/harlo/proofofexistence


***
http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2015/04/15/announcing-mit-dci.html

Announcing the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative »
Apr 15, 2015 - 16:17 UTC »
MITCOIN.jpg

As Bitcoin continues to gain momentum and capture the interest of
entrepreneurs, hackers, businesses, policymakers, and academics, we have
decided to launch an Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, with participation
from faculty and students from across the Institute, focusing on Bitcoin
and more generally cryptocurrencies.

The Initiative will explore vital research topics that our faculty and
students will engage in with the support and participation of some Media
Lab member companies. The students running the MIT Bitcoin Club, the MIT
Bitcoin Project, and the various events including the Bitcoin Expo have
been a key part of getting this initiative started. The MIT Bitcoin
Expo, which was hosted by MIT Bitcoin Club President Jonathan
Harvey-Buschel and Wellesley Bitcoin Club President Jinglan Wang this
year exemplified the kind of interscholastic collaboration and
excitement over Bitcoin research that we want to see going forward.

The Media Lab has hired former White House senior advisor for mobile and
data innovation, Brian Forde to lead the overall effort along with MIT
CSAIL's Nickolai Zeldovich, a highly distinguished professor in security
and distributed systems, who will be coordinating the research and
academics. Jeremy Rubin, an undergraduate who helped run the MIT Bitcoin
Project, will coordinate communications with the broader developer
community and MIT students and will also work on research projects. More
details on other MIT participants can be found in Brian's blog post.

The Initiative's focus will be heavily informed by the work done by the
Bitcoin community, as well as by companies and forward-thinking policy
makers. We hope to be able to contribute academically and technically to
the field, following the great example set by Princeton and others. This
is more about rallying interest within the MIT community than forming a
general long-term solution for Bitcoin development and governance.

As I've said in a previous blog post and my talk at the MIT Bitcoin
Expo, I do think there is a real need for a coordinating function around
standards and policy. I believe that this effort must be multinational
and multistakeholder. Continuing discussion with the Berkman Center at
Harvard and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society will, we hope,
contribute to the broader conversation on this matter.

See the post by Brian on the Media Lab blog for more information about
the Initiative. We've set up an IRC channel irc.freenode.net/#mit-dci,
where we will be hanging out. We look forward to your feedback and ideas
for collaboration.

-- 
  Nathan of Guardian
  nathan at guardianproject.info