College

How to Restore Your Faith in Government

Images courtesy of MIT Video Productions Here’s the announcement of the new blockchain education program with the Massachusetts state government. It’s a big deal. We have a vision for where this kind of partnership can go, when governments begin educating themselves on the power of bitcoin and blockchain. That vision can be summed up in two words: Kendall Square. Kendall Square, then. The Kendall Square neighborhood lies next to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stretching along the Charles River that separates Cambridge from Boston. (Here’s a map.) Although you’d think

Staking, Consensus and the Pursuit of Decentralization

Oh, the wonders of decentralized consensus — that dream of permissionless blockchains to be censorship-resistant, trustless, collaborative and egalitarian for a potentially global community of users. While lofty in ideals, consensus is foundational for each crypto network, which must agree upon that most basic question of who decides what on the network.Decentralized consensus in the form of a proof-of-work mechanism was at the core of Satoshi Nakamoto’s innovation when creating Bitcoin — all additional protocol elements stem from PoW’s ability to reach consensus regarding the digital ledger through the computational work

Remaining Anonymous: Which Crypto Privacy Solution Works Best?

The cryptocurrency industry was initially headlined as anonymous digital cash. While experts were keen to point out that this was not exactly the case, Bitcoin (BTC) found initial popularity in darknet markets such as Silk Road, where merchants sold illegal goods ranging from light drugs to, allegedly, hitman services. Founded in 2011, Silk Road thrived for the next two years until the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut it down in 2013. Authorities later revealed that completely free blockchain explorers aided their investigative efforts.Bitcoin’s transaction ledger is completely open for the