A lot has happened since Bitcoin came to life in 2009: a rise in transaction volumes, a spread of Bitcoin cash machines and vendors, new financing forms like Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) und Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). At the same time, many early promises and expectations have failed to come true: the tracing of payments on the public blockchain renders the ideal of total anonymity impossible; mining pools have led to centralisation instead of the aspired decentralisation; scalability issues have impeded Bitcoin’s capacity for fast affordable micropayments.
The "Symposium on Post-Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies" on the 19th of October brought together scientists and researcher from internationally renowned universities to discuss the new regularoty challenges that have emerged with the rise of a number of alternative cryptocurrencies (such as the privacy-enhanced currencies Zcash and Monero, or the decentralised computing platforms Ethereum) and to highlight the new challenges businesses, users, and regulators will face in the light of Post-Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies.
Speakers and tentative talk titles:
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Welcome and Introduction (Dr. Bernhard Haslhofer, Austrian Institute of Technology)
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The Post-Bitcoin Era: Cryptocurrencies Are Here to Stay (Prof. Dr. Rainer Böhme, University of Innsbruck)
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De-Anonymization in Bitcoin and Beyond (Prof. Sarah Meiklejohn PhD, University College London)
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Towards Better Privacy with Monero (Malte Möser, Princeton University)
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Tracking Payment Flows in Ethereum (Michael Fröwis, University of Innsbruck)
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Cryptocurrencies & Counterterrorism: Cooperative Solutions for Law Enforcement Agencies (Prof. Daniel G. Arce M. PhD, UT Dallas)
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Chances and Risks of Cryptocurrencies’ Transparency – A Legal Perspective (Dr. Paulina Pesch, KIT Karlsruhe)
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Regulating the Shadow Banks in the Cryptocurrency Ecosystem (Prof. Ross J. Anderson FRS FREng, Cambridge University)
(l.t.r.) Sarah Meiklejohn (University College London), Bernhard Haslhofer (AIT), Paulina Jo Pesch (KIT Karlsruhe), Ross Anderson (University of Cambridge), Rainer Böhme (Universität Innsbruck), Daniel G. Arce (University of Texas), Malte Möser (Princeton University), Michael Fröwis (Universität Innsbruck)
Further Links:
- Security and Pivacy Lab (Research Group)
- AIT - Symposium on Post-Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies
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The Reality of the Post-Bitcoin Era (Report on the Symposium by Andrew Newman)