March 16, 2023 • 13 mins
Listen to Bloomberg Crypto on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Last year, just before the crypto winter had hit in earnest, Princeton University opened up “The Center for the Decentralization of Power Through Blockchain Technology”.
The Center was funded in part by a $20 million gift from prominent Princeton alumni including Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners, and Joe Lubin, co-founder of the Ethereum crypto platform.
The university says the Center focuses on the software engineering that makes blockchain technology work, finds innovative uses for decentralized systems and considers how it might affect our collective future.
One year on, as the crypto winter persists, what’s the Center up to these days?
Bloomberg reporter Francesca Maglione joins this episode to discuss the role universities are playing in studying blockchain.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Stacy Marie Ishmel, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,
and this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I Hood podcast.
It's Thursday, March sixteenth. Last year, just before the crypto
(00:29):
winter had hit, in Earnest, Princeton University opened up the
Center for the Decentralization of Power through Blockchain Technology. I
know that's a mouthful, so I'll say it again. The
Center for the Decentralization of Power through Blockchain Technology, an
ambitious name for an ambitious program, funded in part by
a twenty million dollar gift from prominent Princeton alumni, including
(00:54):
Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy and Joe Lubin, co founder
of the Ethereum blockchain. The university said that the center
will focus on software engineering that makes blockchain technology work,
on new and innovative ideas and uses for a decentralized system,
and of course, how any in all of this might
affect our collective future. One year on, as the crypto
(01:16):
winter persists, I wanted to know what's the Center been
up to these days? Here to discuss what's happening in
Princeton and the broader rule at universities are playing and
study in blockchain technology is Bloomberg Report. Francesca Maglione. Francesca,
(01:38):
welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Now,
perhaps when you got started as a higher education reporter,
you weren't expecting to have to talk about crypto. Yeah,
crypto has that effect on other beats, which just like
it just shows up in places and like tada your
crypto reports. And now when you started reporting on this
Princeton University center, like, what did you find and was
any of its surprising to you? I was revisiting a
(02:01):
story that we wrote last year about when the center started,
and I was just curious, you know, they started in
March of last year, before all of the crypto drama
kind of started, and I was just curious to see,
you know, what the center had to say, what the
donors had to say, and how they were thinking of
(02:21):
developing the center. And I was surprised because when I
spoke to both of the directors, they both said that
if anything, kind of the FTX drama and everything that
came with that and the crypto winter kind of reinforced
the need for this kind of center and for academia
to kind of take a step into the crypto world
(02:42):
and kind of try and provide as a neutral as
a voice as possible. There's going to be a lot
of people who are like, academia is not neutral. We
acknowledge that there are lots of opinions in academia. That's fine.
But when I look at your story, one of the
things that you said, you know, citing Princeton's Dean of Engineering,
is that quote essential for universities to play a major
role in the technology development, use cases, and societal and
(03:05):
ethical implications of blockchain and to harness its powers for good.
Like that's a lot of stuff. Yeah, yeah, So what
are they doing day to day? Yeah, So one of
the things that they did, for example, in November, they
had this event with about like sixty people, including I
think the four donors and some people that worked for
the CFTC and regulators and basically what the goal of
(03:28):
this event was to discuss as academics, two bigger ideas,
bigger picked questions, and one of the directors said that
the goal is to kind of establish a list of
questions that the center aims to tackle. They want to
focus on three different things. Applications of blockchain, so technology
(03:48):
and the ethical implications, and Princeton believes that as a
university that has both had access to technology but also
the access to these intellectuals that study ethics and look
at you know, what does this mean once it gets
implemented and thinks about other things besides just you know,
the money, the crypto aspect of it, but more like
(04:10):
real life applications. They think that their positions kind of
in a unique way to break through. They both described
as the hype obviously we saw a lot of last year,
and establish more of an academic institutional look into you know,
(04:30):
what can actually be possible with this technology now. One
of the folks quoted in the piece, who is also
one of the people who helped donate twenty million dollars,
was Mike Novograts, and his comment was that he appreciated
that academics have, to your point, a kind of a
longer term view, which is definitely what you would say
(04:52):
when the crypto market has had such a tough time
in the past twelve months. But is this a center
where where you know, if you are studying at Princeton,
you take classes there, is it a center that's like
publishing research? What are some of their contributions so far. Yeah,
so they are working on I think they have several
(05:12):
research projects going on. They're working to hire someone like
a faculty member as part of the center, and as
part of the donation. There was also an endowed professor,
which is JP, one of the directors, and he teaches.
I think there's several classes in crypto. It's started with
one and now I think there's about three classes that
(05:33):
they offer, And I think that the goal of the
center is eventually embark on different kinds of research projects.
They're still kind of working on that. I think they're
still trying to formulate exactly what those projects will look like.
But I think their goal is to due research with
students with faculty, kind of host these events, board in
people in the space. And also at one point they
(05:55):
also spoke about partnering with blockchain startups and companies in
order to support them and have their students kind of
interact with these companies and look at blockchain that way too. Yeah.
Now you also spoke to when you were doing the
initial reporting for the story, Christian Cassolini, who in his
current incarnation is an academic and researcher at MIT. The
(06:19):
Sloan School. In a previous life was the co creator
of a type of crypto token called DM, which we
could do a whole episode about what happened to DM.
But what did Christians say with his academic hat on
about the idea that this volatility has been good for research.
Christian has been involved in a lot of sprint and
(06:39):
white paper on a lot of crypto issues and block issues.
What all of them said is I think that this
kind of hype or volatility creates a space for intellectuals
to kind of step in and really, like I said before,
kind of breakthrough what's true, what's not, what's hype, what's not?
What for me makes sense that academics would kind of
(07:03):
step into the space when other people are pushing back
because the shiny things are kind of going away. It
seems like not nerdy, But like na hey, this is
an extremely nerd friendly podcast, so no one needs to
describe something as not nerdy. Here. We put in a
call to Christian and asked him about declining campus interest
(07:24):
in crypto and blockchain. Christian said, there's a natural response
to what's happening in the broader crypto ecosystem. Students are
very attuned to what's happening in society. I wouldn't be
surprised if right now there's a massive influx on classes
that deal with AI. I think it's normal, to be honest,
a little bit, like we've seen with entrepreneurs, quality over quantity.
(07:44):
You'd want students that go into blockchain classes that really
have a deep passion or understanding of the topic or
really care about some of its potential ramifications. It's not
about the number of students, It's more about can we
really train the ones that you know about this the
most in the best possible way. We've been running an
online class, for example, for executives and others for many,
(08:08):
many years, and it is really true that depending on
boom and bus cycles applications, you know, skyrocket and then
drop back down. But I think that's all natural, and
university should be somewhat detached from what's happening in the market,
and to some extent, if there's a really good reason
in computer science in economics to talk about these systems
(08:28):
in class, that should should be a little bit more
isolated to what's happening day to day. When you see,
you know, the different news cycles play out up next
more from Bloomberger Posto Francesco mcleona on how the universities
are embracing or studying blockchain technology. We'll be right back
(08:56):
in terms of higher education more broadly. So, obviously MT
as its own crypto center, there's this Princeton Center. Are
there other institutes of learning, as it were, that have
some kind of focus on blockchain crypto that you've encountered. Yeah.
I also spoke to Richard Lions at Berkeley. I think
Berkeley has been one of the schools that has been
(09:17):
very active. They have I think a lot of classes
on crypto, and they also have some focus on startups
and things like that. But yeah, I think from at
least Prince's perspective, it seems like when the center started
last year, there was a lot of interest from to
take these kinds of classes. JP told me that he
(09:38):
opened a class and in ninety seconds the class was
completely full. Last year. Are those students are boughts like
houses happening so fast? Yeah? And by JP, you mean
jasuines are pulsing one of the directors of the center,
and he told me that this is just when it
was open to sneers. I graduated two years ago. I
know exactly the feeling of clicking on the button really
fast when you want to sign up for a class.
(09:59):
I when I asked what the case was this year,
he told me that it wasn't the case at all.
I mean, they have more classes now, he did mention that,
but he did say that the energy is not the
same has definitely been tainted again from an academics perspective,
he talked about how for him, the importance of blockchain
has nothing to do with money, has nothing to do
(10:20):
with all of these crazy speculative elements. Yeah or yeah,
exactly our returns or everything that we were seeing last years.
He was like, I really want my students that care
about the technology, that think what can this bring to
a developing country that has a really bad economy or
things like that. That's kind of what he's thinking about.
And I think, what from Princeton's perspective, at least these
(10:43):
institutions are trying to step into now. One of the
areas that's been shall we say, competing with interest for
crypto is artificial intelligence. As you are, you know, both
recently in from an institution of higher education also reporting
on it. Where are you seeing kind of like AI
(11:03):
starting to attract some of the shininess that CRYPTO would
have been attracting, say two years ago. Yeah, I think
with Chad GBT definitely brought it into into the mainstream.
Like I was at Duke two years ago and there
were a bunch of AI classes and I don't I
didn't see the level of excitement that I see now
(11:25):
but really fast. Yeah, but definitely, as with Crypto, the
more and more these names start coming up in the media,
the more more interest there is from from academics to
kind of step in. And I think with AI it's
similar in a way where it still hasn't developed. I
guess the or there are potentials to be controversial, but
(11:47):
they haven't really come into light as they did with crypto.
But it would be interesting to see what these people
are going to be thinking in two years. Totally, definitely,
and definitely a lot of questions about so well, Francesco,
thank you so much for joining us on the show.
Great that was, Bloomberg reportsa Francesco Magleiona. You can find
(12:10):
more of her reporting in the Bloomberg Terminal and on
Bloomberg dot com, and be sure to check out our
twice weekly newsletter Bloomberg Crypto. This is Bloomberg Crypto, a
daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. From more shows from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(12:32):
your podcasts. A quick programming note for you. We're working
on something new that expands on how we're covering crypto
and the future of finance, and we'll be back soon
to tell you more. Follow a subscribe to Bloomberg Cryptos
to stay tuned for updates. We'll be bringing you info
about what's next right here in this feed. In the meantime,
get caught up on all of our Bloomberg iHeart podcasts,
(12:54):
The Big Take, Daily Crash Course, and our narrative series
in Trust. To stay in touch with Bloomberg Crypto, you
can find out coverage as always at Bloomberg dot com
slash Crypto. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky Vergelina.
Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producers are Mohammed
(13:17):
Faroupe and Sharon Barrero. Our associate producers are Ty Butler
and Moses on m Desto wander Ad is our engineer.
Original music by Leo Sidron, I'm Stacy Marie Schmal. We'll
be back tomorrow.
I'm Stacy Marie Ishmel, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,
and this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I Hood podcast.
It's Thursday, March sixteenth. Last year, just before the crypto
(00:29):
winter had hit, in Earnest, Princeton University opened up the
Center for the Decentralization of Power through Blockchain Technology. I
know that's a mouthful, so I'll say it again. The
Center for the Decentralization of Power through Blockchain Technology, an
ambitious name for an ambitious program, funded in part by
a twenty million dollar gift from prominent Princeton alumni, including
(00:54):
Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy and Joe Lubin, co founder
of the Ethereum blockchain. The university said that the center
will focus on software engineering that makes blockchain technology work,
on new and innovative ideas and uses for a decentralized system,
and of course, how any in all of this might
affect our collective future. One year on, as the crypto
(01:16):
winter persists, I wanted to know what's the Center been
up to these days? Here to discuss what's happening in
Princeton and the broader rule at universities are playing and
study in blockchain technology is Bloomberg Report. Francesca Maglione. Francesca,
(01:38):
welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Now,
perhaps when you got started as a higher education reporter,
you weren't expecting to have to talk about crypto. Yeah,
crypto has that effect on other beats, which just like
it just shows up in places and like tada your
crypto reports. And now when you started reporting on this
Princeton University center, like, what did you find and was
any of its surprising to you? I was revisiting a
(02:01):
story that we wrote last year about when the center started,
and I was just curious, you know, they started in
March of last year, before all of the crypto drama
kind of started, and I was just curious to see,
you know, what the center had to say, what the
donors had to say, and how they were thinking of
(02:21):
developing the center. And I was surprised because when I
spoke to both of the directors, they both said that
if anything, kind of the FTX drama and everything that
came with that and the crypto winter kind of reinforced
the need for this kind of center and for academia
to kind of take a step into the crypto world
(02:42):
and kind of try and provide as a neutral as
a voice as possible. There's going to be a lot
of people who are like, academia is not neutral. We
acknowledge that there are lots of opinions in academia. That's fine.
But when I look at your story, one of the
things that you said, you know, citing Princeton's Dean of Engineering,
is that quote essential for universities to play a major
role in the technology development, use cases, and societal and
(03:05):
ethical implications of blockchain and to harness its powers for good.
Like that's a lot of stuff. Yeah, yeah, So what
are they doing day to day? Yeah, So one of
the things that they did, for example, in November, they
had this event with about like sixty people, including I
think the four donors and some people that worked for
the CFTC and regulators and basically what the goal of
(03:28):
this event was to discuss as academics, two bigger ideas,
bigger picked questions, and one of the directors said that
the goal is to kind of establish a list of
questions that the center aims to tackle. They want to
focus on three different things. Applications of blockchain, so technology
(03:48):
and the ethical implications, and Princeton believes that as a
university that has both had access to technology but also
the access to these intellectuals that study ethics and look
at you know, what does this mean once it gets
implemented and thinks about other things besides just you know,
the money, the crypto aspect of it, but more like
(04:10):
real life applications. They think that their positions kind of
in a unique way to break through. They both described
as the hype obviously we saw a lot of last year,
and establish more of an academic institutional look into you know,
(04:30):
what can actually be possible with this technology now. One
of the folks quoted in the piece, who is also
one of the people who helped donate twenty million dollars,
was Mike Novograts, and his comment was that he appreciated
that academics have, to your point, a kind of a
longer term view, which is definitely what you would say
(04:52):
when the crypto market has had such a tough time
in the past twelve months. But is this a center
where where you know, if you are studying at Princeton,
you take classes there, is it a center that's like
publishing research? What are some of their contributions so far. Yeah,
so they are working on I think they have several
(05:12):
research projects going on. They're working to hire someone like
a faculty member as part of the center, and as
part of the donation. There was also an endowed professor,
which is JP, one of the directors, and he teaches.
I think there's several classes in crypto. It's started with
one and now I think there's about three classes that
(05:33):
they offer, And I think that the goal of the
center is eventually embark on different kinds of research projects.
They're still kind of working on that. I think they're
still trying to formulate exactly what those projects will look like.
But I think their goal is to due research with
students with faculty, kind of host these events, board in
people in the space. And also at one point they
(05:55):
also spoke about partnering with blockchain startups and companies in
order to support them and have their students kind of
interact with these companies and look at blockchain that way too. Yeah.
Now you also spoke to when you were doing the
initial reporting for the story, Christian Cassolini, who in his
current incarnation is an academic and researcher at MIT. The
(06:19):
Sloan School. In a previous life was the co creator
of a type of crypto token called DM, which we
could do a whole episode about what happened to DM.
But what did Christians say with his academic hat on
about the idea that this volatility has been good for research.
Christian has been involved in a lot of sprint and
(06:39):
white paper on a lot of crypto issues and block issues.
What all of them said is I think that this
kind of hype or volatility creates a space for intellectuals
to kind of step in and really, like I said before,
kind of breakthrough what's true, what's not, what's hype, what's not?
What for me makes sense that academics would kind of
(07:03):
step into the space when other people are pushing back
because the shiny things are kind of going away. It
seems like not nerdy, But like na hey, this is
an extremely nerd friendly podcast, so no one needs to
describe something as not nerdy. Here. We put in a
call to Christian and asked him about declining campus interest
(07:24):
in crypto and blockchain. Christian said, there's a natural response
to what's happening in the broader crypto ecosystem. Students are
very attuned to what's happening in society. I wouldn't be
surprised if right now there's a massive influx on classes
that deal with AI. I think it's normal, to be honest,
a little bit, like we've seen with entrepreneurs, quality over quantity.
(07:44):
You'd want students that go into blockchain classes that really
have a deep passion or understanding of the topic or
really care about some of its potential ramifications. It's not
about the number of students, It's more about can we
really train the ones that you know about this the
most in the best possible way. We've been running an
online class, for example, for executives and others for many,
(08:08):
many years, and it is really true that depending on
boom and bus cycles applications, you know, skyrocket and then
drop back down. But I think that's all natural, and
university should be somewhat detached from what's happening in the market,
and to some extent, if there's a really good reason
in computer science in economics to talk about these systems
(08:28):
in class, that should should be a little bit more
isolated to what's happening day to day. When you see,
you know, the different news cycles play out up next
more from Bloomberger Posto Francesco mcleona on how the universities
are embracing or studying blockchain technology. We'll be right back
(08:56):
in terms of higher education more broadly. So, obviously MT
as its own crypto center, there's this Princeton Center. Are
there other institutes of learning, as it were, that have
some kind of focus on blockchain crypto that you've encountered. Yeah.
I also spoke to Richard Lions at Berkeley. I think
Berkeley has been one of the schools that has been
(09:17):
very active. They have I think a lot of classes
on crypto, and they also have some focus on startups
and things like that. But yeah, I think from at
least Prince's perspective, it seems like when the center started
last year, there was a lot of interest from to
take these kinds of classes. JP told me that he
(09:38):
opened a class and in ninety seconds the class was
completely full. Last year. Are those students are boughts like
houses happening so fast? Yeah? And by JP, you mean
jasuines are pulsing one of the directors of the center,
and he told me that this is just when it
was open to sneers. I graduated two years ago. I
know exactly the feeling of clicking on the button really
fast when you want to sign up for a class.
(09:59):
I when I asked what the case was this year,
he told me that it wasn't the case at all.
I mean, they have more classes now, he did mention that,
but he did say that the energy is not the
same has definitely been tainted again from an academics perspective,
he talked about how for him, the importance of blockchain
has nothing to do with money, has nothing to do
(10:20):
with all of these crazy speculative elements. Yeah or yeah,
exactly our returns or everything that we were seeing last years.
He was like, I really want my students that care
about the technology, that think what can this bring to
a developing country that has a really bad economy or
things like that. That's kind of what he's thinking about.
And I think, what from Princeton's perspective, at least these
(10:43):
institutions are trying to step into now. One of the
areas that's been shall we say, competing with interest for
crypto is artificial intelligence. As you are, you know, both
recently in from an institution of higher education also reporting
on it. Where are you seeing kind of like AI
(11:03):
starting to attract some of the shininess that CRYPTO would
have been attracting, say two years ago. Yeah, I think
with Chad GBT definitely brought it into into the mainstream.
Like I was at Duke two years ago and there
were a bunch of AI classes and I don't I
didn't see the level of excitement that I see now
(11:25):
but really fast. Yeah, but definitely, as with Crypto, the
more and more these names start coming up in the media,
the more more interest there is from from academics to
kind of step in. And I think with AI it's
similar in a way where it still hasn't developed. I
guess the or there are potentials to be controversial, but
(11:47):
they haven't really come into light as they did with crypto.
But it would be interesting to see what these people
are going to be thinking in two years. Totally, definitely,
and definitely a lot of questions about so well, Francesco,
thank you so much for joining us on the show.
Great that was, Bloomberg reportsa Francesco Magleiona. You can find
(12:10):
more of her reporting in the Bloomberg Terminal and on
Bloomberg dot com, and be sure to check out our
twice weekly newsletter Bloomberg Crypto. This is Bloomberg Crypto, a
daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. From more shows from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(12:32):
your podcasts. A quick programming note for you. We're working
on something new that expands on how we're covering crypto
and the future of finance, and we'll be back soon
to tell you more. Follow a subscribe to Bloomberg Cryptos
to stay tuned for updates. We'll be bringing you info
about what's next right here in this feed. In the meantime,
get caught up on all of our Bloomberg iHeart podcasts,
(12:54):
The Big Take, Daily Crash Course, and our narrative series
in Trust. To stay in touch with Bloomberg Crypto, you
can find out coverage as always at Bloomberg dot com
slash Crypto. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky Vergelina.
Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producers are Mohammed
(13:17):
Faroupe and Sharon Barrero. Our associate producers are Ty Butler
and Moses on m Desto wander Ad is our engineer.
Original music by Leo Sidron, I'm Stacy Marie Schmal. We'll
be back tomorrow.
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