The objective of the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab is to push the research frontier in the emerging field of cryptoeconomics.
Cryptoeconomics brings together the fields of economics and computer science to study the decentralized marketplaces and applications that can be built by combining cryptography with economic incentives.
It focuses on individual decision-making and strategic interaction between different participants in a digital ecosystem (e.g. users, providers of key resources, application developers etc.), and uses methodologies from the field of economics - such as game theory, mechanism design and causal inference - to understand how to fund, design, develop, facilitate the operations and encourage the adoption of decentralized marketplaces and related services and digital assets.
The resulting "digital economies" often require the definition of a monetary, fiscal, privacy and innovation policy. Moreover, they need effective governance to ensure that the platform maintainers can upgrade the underlying software protocols over time in response to changes in the environment, technology or market needs.
LATEST RESEARCH BY THE LAB
Marthews, Alexander and Catherine Tucker. International Journal of Research in Marketing. Forthcoming.
Cui, Tony Haitao Anindya Ghose, Hanna Halaburda, Raghuram Iyengar, Koen Pauwels, S. Sriram, Catherine Tucker, and Sriraman Venkataraman. Journal of Marketing Vol. 85, No. 1 (2021): 103-120.
"Blockchain and Identity Persistence."
Marthews, Alex, and Catherine Tucker. In Cryptoassets: Legal, Regulatory, and Monetary Perspectives, edited by Chris Brummer, 243-260. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019. Download Paper.
"Antitrust and Costless Verification: An Optimistic and a Pessimistic View of the Implications of Blockchain Technology."
Catalini, Christian, and Catherine Tucker. Antitrust Law Journal Vol. 82, No. 3 (2019): 1-10. SSRN.
Catalini, Christian, and Joshua Gans, MIT Sloan Working Paper 5347-18. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, March 2019.
Gordon, William, and Christian Catalini. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal Vol. 16, (2018): 224-230.
Catalini, Christian, and Catherine Tucker. Science Vol. 357, No. 6347 (2017): 135-136.
Athey, Susan, Christian Catalini, and Catherine Tucker, MIT Sloan Working Paper 5196-17. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, June 2017.
MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab
Bitcoin study: Period of exclusivity encourages early adopters
Delaying access for the tech-savvy can stifle spread of new products, experiment with MIT students shows.
Learn MoreMore Information on Digital Currency
Cryptoeconomics in the press
Would a US digital dollar let the government track you?
"On one side people want privacy around their financial transactions, but on the other side there are concerns around full privacy."
Why Bitcoin won't go green any time soon
"The evolution and sustainability of Bitcoin will be much more driven by miners targeting renewables."
Meltem Demirors on why society isn't ready for a crypto-driven revolutio...
"We've recognized that in order for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to achieve adoption, we do need to collaborate with institutions.”
'The Merge' is happening. Here's what that means for those in crypto.
"We don't see major shifts and changes to the governance and incentives model of a large cryptocurrency that often."
What problems does crypto solve, anyway?
"A lot of the features that we've come to expect from the traditional financial system are re-emerging in crypto."
MIT Professor believes DeFi can reduce banking power: Interview
“Banking tends to be unusually concentrated ... Decentralised finance as a movement promises to change this pattern of concentration.”
Cryptocurrency tech is vulnerable to tampering, a DARPA analysis finds
"You could imagine some of the issues being exploited, eventually. But the community will get better at developing the right solutions."
CIOs called to quickly show return on technology investment
"In the research that we've done, companies that are much more effective at creating the four drivers have much higher revenue growth."