The following open letter was written by Dan Boneh (Stanford), Joseph Bonneau (Nyu), Giulia Fanti (Carnegie Mellon), Ben Fisch (Yale), Ari Juelle (Cornell), Farinaz Koushanfar (UC San Diego), Andrew Miller (Colombia), David Tocel (Stanford), Pramod Viswanath (Princeton).
Here is a multiple choice question.
Algorand, arbitrum, avalanche, axlar, Babylon, Cardano, Cosmos, Eigenlayer, Espresso, Flashbots, Oasis, Starkware, Su.
Byzantine protocols Fault tolerants (BFT), digital signatures, formal verification, maximum extractable value (MEV), public key cryptography, work proof, Rollups, confidence execution environments (TEE) used in blockchain systems, verifiable random functions (VRF), zero-convenience proof systems.
Which of the following statements are true for companies, projects and concepts listed above?
A) They were invented / created by researchers employed or with deep roots in university establishments.
B) They fueled and transformed the crypto / blockchain industry.
C) They demonstrate how essential academic innovation is in cryptographic / blockchain industry.
D) all of the above.
The answer is D. The part of the lion of these innovations occurred in universities, largely in the United States.
Crypto and the American federal government
The White House and Congress work to support and accelerate innovation and strengthen American domination in the cryptographic economy and blockchain technologies that feed it. The White House has created the presidential working group on the digital asset markets, while two main laws, the stable engineering and bills, are pending at Congress. There is a need for tears of regulatory and legislative reforms that prioritize and support crypto innovation while applying robust protections for consumers. Efforts to make these things reasonably have to be applauded.
At the same time, however, we are about to see massive reductions in the financing of university research in the United States. The White House budget proposal for 2025 includes a decrease of 55% for the National Science Foundation (NSF). In the meantime, China increased its 10% budget last year. NSF is the source of most federal funding for computer research in American universities. It is the main source of financing that motivated cryptographic innovations such as those in the above list. Companies provide little funding for university research because it is not specific to the product. Therefore, financing of the NSF means funding scientists in the United States – including the main cryptographic innovations.
Found the innovation pipeline
We are university researchers in the crypto field, representing five American universities. In addition to our teaching, we organize research and formal research.
While market capitalization is a short -term indicator of the health of the cryptographic industry, the number of doctoral students who study blockchain is long -term: it reflects the depth of future scientific leadership. This pipeline is already thinning. Many of us have not been able to face new doctoral students this year due to the uncertain American financing climate. And we are not alone.
Several of the companies in the above list have been co-founded by former members of our university groups or by us. If future members of our groups disappear in parallel with scientific funding, the successful future founders of cryptographic companies in the United States and doctoral students are not content to start from businesses. They are also the engine that feeds academic research and ultimately in industry, doing the high -intensity of brain and work behind technical innovations that lead to faster and more secure blockchains. Doctoral students in our groups played a key role in the creation or progression of many concepts in the second list above. If they disappear, the breakthroughs they would have brought to industry.
When we are financed to do research and stay at the dawn of crypto innovation, we are also better teachers – able to equip students from the latest advances. This means stronger technical leaders educated in the United States
Conclusion
Better regulations and better legislation could be a crypto boon. But American leadership in the crypto will not be secured by politics alone. At the forefront of cryptographic innovation is science – and American universities have long been its power.
If you are a farmer who tries to ensure a strong harvest, it is wise to upgrade your equipment and widen your fields. But if you stop planting seeds, no amount of machines will save harvest.
If you care about American leadership in crypto, contact your Congress representatives and the senators. Under the exhort to support the funding of research that has made the American universities the semencement bed of global scientific and technical leadership – Blockchain technology included.
Authors:
Dan Boneh is a teacher of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Stanford and advises A16z Crypto and several projects in the Blockchain Espace.
Joseph Bonneau is an associate professor of computer science at New York University. He was an advisor for ZCASH, Algorand, Chia, O (1) Labs and Espresso systems and research partner at A16z Crypto.
Giulia Fanti is the associate professor of electrical engineering Angel Jordan at Carnegie Mellon University. She is co-director of the Crypto-Monnaies and Contracts Initiative (IC3), member of the Security and Privacy Advisory Council of the Ministry of Commerce (ISPAB), and a member of the Synthetic Data Experts (SDEG) of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (SDEG).
Ben Fisch is a deputy professor of computer science at the University of Yale. He is co-founder of Espresso Systems and has advised several important cryptography projects, notably Chia and Flecoin.
Ari Juelle is the Weill Family Foundation and Joan and Sanford I. Weill Professor at Cornell Tech and member of the computer faculty in Cornell University. He is also co-director of the Crypto-Monnaies and Contracts Initiative (IC3), the chief scientist of Chainlink Labs and the author of the Cryptographic Thriller The Oracle.
Farinaz Koushanfar is the chair teacher with Nemat-Nasser in electrical and computer engineering at the University of California San Diego. She is also the founding co -director of the UCSD Center for Machine Intelligence, Computing and Security (MICS), and a researcher at Chainlink Labs. She is a member of ACM, IEEE, and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
Andrew Miller is an assistant associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign. He is also coditor of flashbots[X]Codirector of the Crypto-Monnaies Initiative and Contracts (IC3), and member of the Board of Directors of the ZCASH Foundation. He was advisor to cycles, chainlink, inc, inc, clique and pi2.
Ciamac Moallemi Is William von Mueffling business professor and director of the Briger Family Digital Finance Lab at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University. He is also an advisor to several blockchain and fintech space companies.
David TSE is the engineering professor of Thomas Kailath and Guanghan XU at the University of Stanford. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and recipient of the Claude E. Shannon Prize in 2017 and the IEEE Richard W. Hamming medal in 2019. He is also co-founder of the Babylon Bitcoin Babylon, currently classified 8th in TVL (total locked value) among all the protocols Defil.
PRAMOD VISWANATH is the engineering teacher at Forrest G. Hamrick at Princeton University. He is a main contributor to feel.
