Digital Currency Initiative (DCI)

The Digital Currency Initiative is a group at MIT focusing on cryptocurrency and its underlying technologies. The mission is to create a future in which moving value across the Internet is as intuitive and efficient as moving information.

As with the Internet, cryptocurrencies have the potential to affect all aspects of industry, from financial transactions to social networks.  We imagine a tipping point at which growing numbers of users start to demand the autonomy, openness and new value-generating potential of digital currencies and blockchains.
 
There is still a great deal of fundamental research and development needed before the technology can deliver on these promises, and academia has a vital role to play in that endeavor. Venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and a new breed of crypto investor have collectively invested  billions in blockchain-based startups and so-called ICOs, at the same time that Wall Street banks, marquee technology companies, and government and international agencies have rushed to establish blockchain research labs. Yet leading experts in cryptography and economics are only now starting to weigh in on questions around the security of this technology and its broader impact on the economy.
 
That’s why the MIT Media Lab launched the MIT Digital Currency Initiative. The goal of the DCI is to bring together the brightest minds at MIT and elsewhere to conduct the research necessary to support the development of digital currency and blockchain technology.
 
Together with collaborators at other universities and research institutions, we are working with interdisciplinary groups of faculty, students, and research scientists to author research papers, run pilot use cases of the technology, and develop open-source software.