The Initiative for CryptoCurrencies & Contracts (IC3)

🌐 Want to be at the forefront of #blockchain & #cryptocurrency innovation? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter: https://shorturl.at/lc8R4 Also connect with the vibrant IC3 community across our social sites! 🌟 🌟 X: twitter.com/initc3org 📘 Medium: medium.com/@initc3org 🖥️ Website: initc3.org 📷 Youtube: https://lnkd.in/eMwD9iVK

Save the date: We'll be hosting a live Q&A about the IC3-Cornell Blockchain Accelerator WHEN: Wednesday, Dec 18th @ 5pm EST WHERE: Zoom https://lnkd.in/eMp2ZkDq We'll cover what you need to know, eligibility requirements, program incentives, and more. Anyone interested in the program is encouraged to attend. Last week we announced IC3 and Cornell have joined forces to launch the IC3-Cornell Blockchain Accelerator — an initiative designed to turn bold ideas into real-world applications. We're excited to have a growing list of industry heavy-weights who are ready to help guide participants through the program, including: - John Wu, President, Ava Labs, Cornell alum - Gengmo Q., Partner, @Dragonfly, IC3 & Cornell alum - Alexander Lin, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Reforge - 🌊Steven Willinger 🌊, GP, Blockchain Builders Fund | BBF - Kun P., Founder, Stanford Blockchain Accelerator, BASS - Jesper Kristensen, Co-founder, Panoptic IC3 and Cornell have a proud history of helping early-stage projects go from 0-1 — Ava Labs, Offchain Labs, Flashbots, Oasis Labs, Gyroscope, and Chainlink Labs among several others. These companies stem from academic research and are actively shaping the industry. We’re now looking to help the next big projects get off the ground. Applications for the first cohort are open until Jan 15, 2025! Go here to apply: https://lnkd.in/eR9TSesb

How can industry and academia work together to advance crypto and blockchain development? We’re excited to introduce the IC3-Cornell Blockchain Accelerator: A groundbreaking initiative, led by students and alumni, to transform research and bold ideas into real-world applications. IC3 and Cornell have a proven track record of fostering projects that help shape the industry. Alumni and research from our communities have led to the creation of companies like Chainlink Labs, Ava Labs, Offchain Labs, Flashbots, Gyroscope, Oasis, and many others. Eligibility: This accelerator is geared towards early-stage projects that are pre-product market fit. Students or alumni who are affiliated with IC3 or Cornell are eligible to apply. Applications are now open! Click below to learn more and apply by Jan 15, 2025 to be considered for the first cohort: https://lnkd.in/eR9TSesb

NEW: IC3 researchers present Liquefaction — a wallet platform that redefines private key control in crypto. Liquefaction allows private key access to be shared, rented, or pooled, supporting multi-user policies around crypto assets without direct on-chain traces. Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) help make this possible. The research highlights both pro-social applications, such as privacy-preserving DAOs, wallet-level commitments, and mitigating dusting-attack. Liquefaction can also undermine the security and economic models of many applications, including DAO voting, airdrops, loyalty points, quadratic voting, and more. Liquefaction not only challenges assumptions about private key control, but prompts an entire rethinking of asset ownership in crypto as technologies like TEEs evolve. Read more on Liquefaction, researched by James Austgen, Andrés Fábrega, Mahimna Kelkar, Dani Vilardell, Sarah Allen, Kushal Babel, Jay Yu, and Prof. Ari Juels. https://lnkd.in/giZvUCtJ

NEW: IC3 researchers present Liquefaction — a wallet platform that redefines private key control in crypto. Liquefaction allows private key access to be shared, rented, or pooled, supporting multi-user policies around crypto assets without direct on-chain traces. Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) help make this possible. The research highlights both pro-social applications, such as privacy-preserving DAOs, wallet-level commitments, and mitigating dusting-attack. Liquefaction can also undermine the security and economic models of many applications, including DAO voting, airdrops, loyalty points, quadratic voting, and more. Liquefaction not only challenges assumptions about private key control, but prompts an entire rethinking of asset ownership in crypto as technologies like TEEs evolve. Read more on Liquefaction, researched by James Austgen, Andrés Fábrega, Mahimna Kelkar, Dani Vilardell, Sarah Allen, Kushal Babel, Jay Yu, and Prof. Ari Juels. https://lnkd.in/giZvUCtJ

IC3 is excited to announce Neil DeSilva as our new Executive-in-Residence. Neil will play a pivotal role in fostering critical connections and partnerships between leaders in the financial services, payments, and technology industries, as well as our researchers, practitioners, and students at Cornell Tech. Neil is an innovator, and one of the most accomplished executives in the crypto industry. His track record includes building two multi-billion dollar businesses as CFO of PayPal Digital Currencies, and as Trading Unit CFO at Galaxy. During his time at PayPal, Neil was a co-creator of the PayPal USD stablecoin, which scaled to reach 700 million users worldwide. He also spearheaded venture investments into numerous blockchain startups and established Open Collab NYC, a premier convening for web3, tech founders, investors, and builders. We are excited to leverage Neil’s expertise to advance our mission and connect IC3 with the blockchain ecosystem in NYC. Through his leadership, we aim to strengthen our ties with the broader tech community, while continuing to advance blockchain research and innovation in the space.

In a recent episode of DYOR, Steven Goldfeder (Offchain Labs/The Arbitrum Foundation), Ben Fisch (Espresso Systems), and Eli Ben-Sasson (StarkWare) talked about different types of L2s and the importance of scaling blockchains like Ethereum without sacrificing decentralization. Here are a few key takeaways: Antidote for Scaling Ethereum: Steven explains how L2s address challenges when it comes to Ethereum’s scalability by processing transactions off-chain while retaining security of the L1 protocol. Different Types of Rollups: The panelists covered ZK and optimistic rollups, contrasting their unique verification and proving methods. Shared Sequencing: Ben highlights shared sequencing for better L2 interoperability and introduces Espresso Systems’ marketplace model for efficient transaction processing. StarkWare’s Validity Proofs: Eli shares StarkWare’s focus on secure validity proofs, and how academic backgrounds influenced their approach. Fragmentation & Composability: Improving L2 interoperability is crucial, with solutions like shared sequencing enhancing composability. Future Trends: Privacy, usability, and scalability continue to evolve, with rollups and interoperability leading blockchain’s next wave of innovation. DYOR is a collaborative series between IC3 and The Defiant that examines the impact academic research has on industry development. We cover various topics including privacy, MEV, crypto AI, and regulation. Go here to watch the full DYOR episode on L2s: https://lnkd.in/egVM2xzm

SBC'25 is heading to Berkeley! The website is live now - stay tuned for more program updates coming soon. You can now register to secure your spot early! The talk submission deadline is March 13, 2025. Visit: https://lnkd.in/ePXeqWgm SBC'25 is a collaboration between Berkeley RDI, The Initiative for CryptoCurrencies & Contracts (IC3), and Stanford Center for Blockchain Research

IC3 Research Program Manager Sarah Allen gave an insightful talk at Devcon! Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) offer secure spaces for applications in CPUs and GPUs, but they can also introduce challenges for blockchains. Sarah explained how TEEs can be part of the solution to the issues they create. Stay tuned for more details on this joint research! https://lnkd.in/ejCuy2Fe

Check our latest op-ed for CoinDesk on the decentralization problem of DAOs! This new research by IC3 researchers: Andrés Fábrega, Jay Yu, Amy Zhao, and Prof. Ari Juels, introduces Voting Bloc Entropy (VBE) — a new family of metrics that are designed to mitigate issues stemming from DAO centralization. VBE does not just measure token holdings in individual wallet addresses, but takes into account clusters of token holders that are exhibiting similar voting patterns. #DAO #Decentralization #Blockchain https://lnkd.in/eVhcUWPs