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