Inaugural Year Workshop: Blockchains

“In Cryptography We Trust,” the unofficial Bitcoin motto, has stimulated the creation of tens of billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. What Bitcoin has done for currency, blockchains promise to do for whole industries.

This workshop will explore the blockchain vision of supplanting human trust with distributed algorithms. Participants representing a broad cross-section of disciplines (e.g., computer scientists, economists, lawyers, legal scholars, entrepreneurs, and regulators) will discuss the technical, social, and legal aspects of reengineering services and whole institutions around blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and smart contracts. Presentations will cover challenges ranging from crime to overhyped technologies, and solutions ranging from deployed systems to mere gleams in the eyes of academic researchers.

Schedule:

Introduction

• 9:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.

        Dan Huttenlocher (Dean and Vice Provost, Cornell Tech)

        "Introduction to Cornell Tech"

• 9:15 a.m. - 9:25 a.m.

       Ari Juels (Jacobs, Cornell Tech)

       "Introduction to the Program"

Session 1: The Basics -- Chaired by Ittay Etal

• 9:25 a.m. - 9:50 a.m.

        Andrew Miller ( University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign ) - http://soc1024.ece.illinois.edu/

        "What Exactly Is a Blockchain Anyway?"

• 9:50 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.

        Ari Juels (Jacobs, Cornell Tech) - http://www.arijuels.com/

        "What Are Smart Contracts?"

• 10:15 a.m. - 10:40 a.m.

       Gun Sirer (Cornell) - http://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/egs/

       "What Can and Can't Blockchains Do?"

Session 2: Business and Legal Frontiers -- Chaired by Emin Gun Sirer

• 11:25 a.m. - 11:50 a.m.

        Joshua Ashley Klayman (MoFo) - https://www.mofo.com/people/joshua-klayman.html

        "Initial Coin Offerings"

• 11:50 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

       David Yermack (NYU) - http://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/david-yermack

       "Real Estate Titles on Blockchains"

Session 3: Technical Frontiers -- Chaired by Andrew Miller

• 1:15 p.m. - 1:40 p.m.

       Joe Bonneau (NYU) - http://jbonneau.com/

       "Hostile Blockchain Takeovers"

• 1:40 p.m. - 2:05 p.m.

        Rafael Pass (Cornell Tech) - http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~rafael/

        "New Directions in Consensus"

• 2:05 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

        Dawn Song (UC Berkeley) - https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dawnsong/

       "Future Blockchain Technologies"

• 2:30 p.m. - 2:55 p.m.

        Ittay Eyal (Technion) - https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~ie53/

        "From Cryptocurrencies to Fintech Blockchains"

Session 4: Industry Frontiers -- Chaired by Jim Ballingall

• 3:40 p.m. - 4:05 p.m.

        Jonathan Levin (Chainalysis) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonylevin/

        "The Rise of Cybercrime on Ethereum"

• 4:05 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

       Brian Schroeder (JPMC) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/briantschroeder/

       "Quorum: Adapting Ethereum for Enterprise"

The workshop is co-organized by IC3 (www.initc3.org)

Organizers
Cornell Tech: Ari Juels, Roni Michaely, Rafael Pass; Cornell: Elaine Shi, Gun Sirer

Registration
To register for this workshop, please visit our Eventbrite page.