Welcome to the MIT Media Lab, Gavin, Wlad, and Cory

Last week we announced the launch of the Digital Currency Initiative to support the cryptocurrency community with new research, increased student engagement, and testing of social impact applications. Today, Gavin Andresen, Wladimir van der Laan, and Cory Fields, three of the leading developers of the Bitcoin Core project, have announced that they’re joining the initiative.

With more than $600 million invested in startups built on this new technology over the last few years, and companies like UBS, IBM, and Intel establishing cryptocurrency labs, it’s important that the core development of Bitcoin is supported.

Our hope in offering them positions at the Media Lab is to allow them to do exactly what they were doing before — write the code that maintains and improves Bitcoin Core. We look forward to providing them with a stable platform and the resources needed to allow them to best support the community.

If you’d like to stay up to date about the initiative or have ideas for research areas, feel free to shoot me a note — brianforde@mit.edu.

Brian
@BrianForde

Brian Forde is the Director of Digital Currency at the MIT Media Lab