CryptoWeek #158
Mar 15, 2024 | Staff
Il commento di Ferdinando Ametrano alle crypto-news della settimana.
DGI is a research and development center of excellence
about “scarcity in the digital realm”:
Bitcoin, crypto-assets, and the underlying blockchain technology.
Focused on consulting services, training programs, and software solutions,
we are engaged in the scientific and academic debate, where the cypherpunk
movement meets the Austrian school of economics.
Cryptography, monetary theory,
computer networking, and game theory:
we explore all cornerstones and can assist in understanding them.
The most successful attempt at creating scarcity in the digital realm without a trusted third party, Bitcoin is a bearer asset that can be transferred (over computer networks using private/public key cryptography) but not duplicated. Accessible to anyone, it is intrinsic to a public distributed uncensorable settlement ledger, known as blockchain, updated with cryptographic techniques and secured by large amounts of energy in the form of computational work (mining). Bitcoin is the digital equivalent of gold: scarce, used as money, voluntarily accepted without central planning. As much as gold has played a crucial role in our civilization and the history of money and finance, Bitcoin could be disruptive for the digital civilization and the future of money and finance. More a crypto-commodity than a crypto-currency, Bitcoin aims to be a world reserve asset.
Blockchain is an append-only sequential data structure: to change a block in the middle of the chain all subsequent blocks need to be changed. Very inefficient if compared to a relational database, it is mostly an idiosyncratic technology for digital scarcity. Indeed, blockchain requires an intrinsic native digital asset to provide the economic incentives for the blockchain maintainers to be honest. Without the seigniorage revenues associated to its native asset, a blockchain system would need to select and appoint its maintainers, ultimately resorting to central governance.
A timestamp demonstrates that a document existed in a specific status prior to a given point in time. Digital data can be securely timestamped though the attestation of its hash value in a blockchain transaction. OpenTimestamps is a vendor-independent open protocol that defines a set of operations for creating provable blockchain timestamps and later independently verifying them; as such, it allows for third party auditability and is suitable for regulatory prescriptions. What jewelry is for gold, timestamping could be for Bitcoin: not essential but effective at leveraging its beauty.
Finance does not really need blockchain,
but the blockchain economy does need
new financial services.
The most promising blockchain field is
the development of financial services
for crypto-assets:
those products, indexes, tools, practices, and facilities
(primarily custody)
needed by institutional investors
and high-net-worth individuals.
Moreover, the frontier is the
monetary engineering
made possible by using Bitcoin as reserve asset:
Hayek Money,
the paradigm of new stable private monies
competing with the legal tender ones
and Central Bank Digital Currencies.
Becoming one of our
partners
means empowering your business with
a proper understanding of Bitcoin, crypto-assets, and
blockchain technology.
It is a strategic choice that will allow you to
leverage unique opportunities
while avoiding the irrational hype
that pollutes these topics.
Our partnership program is
aimed at
consulting firms,
financial institutions,
insurance companies,
innovative enterprises,
software houses,
corporates,
lobbying groups,
and regulators.
We offer you a continuous support
in term of
consulting, training, research, and development:
we can help starting-up from early stage
until you reach full autonomy,
also cooperating with the academic world
interested in the issues
of our competence area.
We regularly offer training and education in Italian or English about Bitcoin, crypto-assets, blockchain, distributed ledger, smart contracts, and cryptography: the program is based on the Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology course taught at Milano-Bicocca and other universities. The content can be customized depending on requirements: for corporate or academic settings, public or private events, as a short talk, a single day workshop, or a structured learning program over few days. The training can be offered directly by us or through our Educational Program Partners, realized on-site at your premises or at our own locations.
Our research activity includes
quarterly reports
on the Bitcoin and blockchain ecosystem
(in Italian, exclusive to our
partners)
and the thesis works of our
students.
Anyway, the bulk of the activity
is happening at the
Crypto Asset Lab
(CAL),
a joint research initiative with the University of Milano-Bicocca.
The lab is focused on
crypto-assets as investment opportunity, fintech innovation, and regulatory challenge,
with special regard for their disruptive role in the future of money and finance.
A meeting point between academia, industry, institutions, and regulators,
CAL also promotes a
yearly conference.
We write code
and love to get our hands dirty in programming
and technology.
Check out our
OpenTimestamps calendar
free facility
and
btclib,
an open-source Python library
intended for teaching/learning/using bitcoin,
its blockchain,
and the associated elliptic curve cryptography.
Il commento di Ferdinando Ametrano alle _crypto-news_ della settimana: ogni venerdì alle 18 in _live-streaming_ su YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook e Twitter; subito dopo, anche podcast (Spotify, Apple, Amazon, ecc.).
Mar 15, 2024 | Staff
Il commento di Ferdinando Ametrano alle crypto-news della settimana.
Mar 8, 2024 | Staff
Il commento di Ferdinando Ametrano alle crypto-news della settimana.
Jan 20, 2023 | Staff
Si è svolta martedì 17 gennaio 2023 la presentazione della quattordicesima edizione del report trimestrale su ecosistema Bitcoin, crypto-asset e blockchain curato dal Digital Gold Institute, il principale think tank italiano dedicato al fenomeno Bitcoin e alla scarsità in ambito digitale. Le slide presentate sono disponibili sul sito dell’Istituto www.dgi.io/reports.
Jan 27, 2022 | Staff
Ferdinando M. Ametrano, direttore scientifico DGI e amministratore delegato di CheckSig, è intervenuto alla Crypto Coinference Digital 2022 su “Il ruolo della custodia sicura e dei servizi premium per gli investitori privati e istituzionali”.
Jan 25, 2022 | Staff
Ferdinando M. Ametrano, direttore scientifico DGI e amministratore delegato di CheckSig, è stato intervistato da Eugenio Benetazzo su “Bitcoin Custody & Market Collapse”.
Founder, Scientific Director
Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology at Milano-Bicocca and other universities.
Crypto Asset Lab scientific director, Hayek Money promoter, QuantLib founder, Interest Rate Derivatives Adjunct Professor at Milano-Bicocca. Ex-physicist, Springsteen fan, husband, father of three.
Executive Director
Crypto Asset Lab faculty member, Interest Rate Derivatives Assistant Lecturer at Milano-Bicocca. Master's degree in Mathematical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. Ultra Trail Runner.
Managing Partner
Seasoned strategy consultant, with a focus on digital and banking. Entrepreneur, Bitcoin enthusiast, avid reader.
Digital Gold Institute
Via Giovanni Battista Pirelli 11, 20124 Milano (MI) - ITALY
email: info@dgi.io