IC Colloquium : Blockchains and distributed ledgers in retrospective and perspective
Event details
| Date | 12.12.2016 |
| Hour | 16:15 › 17:30 |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
By : Alexander Lipton - MIT Connection Science and NYU Courant Institute
Video of his talk
Abstract :
A few historical examples of blockchains and distributed ledgers are given and it is shown what can go wrong with them. A modern version of monetary circuit theory is presented and it is explained why the circuit needs a (block)chain! Money creation by the banking system as a whole and by individual banks is analyzed and the role of central banks as the glue which keeps nancial system together is emphasized. Various types of blockchains and described and it is explained which blockchains are needed to satisfy di¤erent needs and requirements. A few fun facts about Bitcoin are presented. Bank money, Bitcoin and P2P money are com-pared and contrasted. X-Road in E-stonia is described. Potential role of distributed ledger technology similar to X-Road for E-Banking is outlined. The applicability of smart contracts for solving delivery vs. payment co-nundrum is studied. Public vs. private blockchains are considered and various potential use cases for distributed ledgers are summarized: (A) post-trade processing; (B) global payments; (C) Trade nance, (D) rehy-pothecation; (E) syndicated loans, real estate transactions, VAT, etc. It is shown why governments should issue digital cash and how they can do
it. Potential implications of digital cash are outlined, including coexis-tence of narrow and free banking. It is argued that Bitcoin cannot play the role of electronic cash. Chaum vs. Nakamoto approaches to digital cash are compared and contrasted. Theoretical and practical aspects of distributed ledgers are considered.
Bio :
Alexander Lipton is a Connection Science fellow at MIT Media Lab, adjunct professor of mathematics at NYU Courant Institute, an advisory board member at the Oxford-Man Institute, and a Scientific Committee member at UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies. He is actively involved with several start-up FinTech companies including a challenger bank and a robo-advisor. In the end of May, he departed from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he served for ten years as a managing director. During this time, Alex worked in various senior managerial roles including quantitative solutions executive and co-head of the Global Quantitative Group. Earlier, he was a managing director and head of Capital Structure Quantitative Research at Citadel Investment Group in Chicago; he has also worked for Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust. While working full time as a banker, Alex held several prestigious academic appointments, including visiting professor of quantitative finance at Oxford-Man Institute, visiting professor of mathematics at Imperial College London, and visiting professor of mathematics at the University of Illinois. Before switching to finance, Alex was a full professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois and a consultant at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in pure mathematics from Moscow State University.
His current professional interests include digital banking, FinTech, including distributed ledger and other applications of cryptography in banking and payment systems. His scientific interests are centered on quantitative development of modern monetary circuit theory, mechanisms of money creation, interlinked banking networks, balance sheet optimization, and related topics.
In 2000, Alex was awarded the first Quant of the Year Award by Risk Magazine. Alex is the author of two books (“Magnetohydrodynamics and Spectral Theory” and “Mathematical Methods for Foreign Exchange”) and the editor of five more, including, most recently, “Quant of the Year 2000-2014, All Award-Winning Papers”. He has published more than a hundred papers on hydrodynamics, magnetohydrodynamics, astrophysics, chemical physics, and financial engineering. His book “Financial Engineering - Selected Works of Alexander Lipton” will be published by WSPC in 2017.
Alex is a founding patron of the 14-10 Club at the Royal Institution (jointly with David Harding). Alex is an avid collector of military optics and is currently working on a book on the history of military binoculars.
Video of his talk
Abstract :
A few historical examples of blockchains and distributed ledgers are given and it is shown what can go wrong with them. A modern version of monetary circuit theory is presented and it is explained why the circuit needs a (block)chain! Money creation by the banking system as a whole and by individual banks is analyzed and the role of central banks as the glue which keeps nancial system together is emphasized. Various types of blockchains and described and it is explained which blockchains are needed to satisfy di¤erent needs and requirements. A few fun facts about Bitcoin are presented. Bank money, Bitcoin and P2P money are com-pared and contrasted. X-Road in E-stonia is described. Potential role of distributed ledger technology similar to X-Road for E-Banking is outlined. The applicability of smart contracts for solving delivery vs. payment co-nundrum is studied. Public vs. private blockchains are considered and various potential use cases for distributed ledgers are summarized: (A) post-trade processing; (B) global payments; (C) Trade nance, (D) rehy-pothecation; (E) syndicated loans, real estate transactions, VAT, etc. It is shown why governments should issue digital cash and how they can do
it. Potential implications of digital cash are outlined, including coexis-tence of narrow and free banking. It is argued that Bitcoin cannot play the role of electronic cash. Chaum vs. Nakamoto approaches to digital cash are compared and contrasted. Theoretical and practical aspects of distributed ledgers are considered.
Bio :
Alexander Lipton is a Connection Science fellow at MIT Media Lab, adjunct professor of mathematics at NYU Courant Institute, an advisory board member at the Oxford-Man Institute, and a Scientific Committee member at UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies. He is actively involved with several start-up FinTech companies including a challenger bank and a robo-advisor. In the end of May, he departed from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he served for ten years as a managing director. During this time, Alex worked in various senior managerial roles including quantitative solutions executive and co-head of the Global Quantitative Group. Earlier, he was a managing director and head of Capital Structure Quantitative Research at Citadel Investment Group in Chicago; he has also worked for Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust. While working full time as a banker, Alex held several prestigious academic appointments, including visiting professor of quantitative finance at Oxford-Man Institute, visiting professor of mathematics at Imperial College London, and visiting professor of mathematics at the University of Illinois. Before switching to finance, Alex was a full professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois and a consultant at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in pure mathematics from Moscow State University.
His current professional interests include digital banking, FinTech, including distributed ledger and other applications of cryptography in banking and payment systems. His scientific interests are centered on quantitative development of modern monetary circuit theory, mechanisms of money creation, interlinked banking networks, balance sheet optimization, and related topics.
In 2000, Alex was awarded the first Quant of the Year Award by Risk Magazine. Alex is the author of two books (“Magnetohydrodynamics and Spectral Theory” and “Mathematical Methods for Foreign Exchange”) and the editor of five more, including, most recently, “Quant of the Year 2000-2014, All Award-Winning Papers”. He has published more than a hundred papers on hydrodynamics, magnetohydrodynamics, astrophysics, chemical physics, and financial engineering. His book “Financial Engineering - Selected Works of Alexander Lipton” will be published by WSPC in 2017.
Alex is a founding patron of the 14-10 Club at the Royal Institution (jointly with David Harding). Alex is an avid collector of military optics and is currently working on a book on the history of military binoculars.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Contact
- Host : Damir Filipovic (SFI) and Bryan Ford (IC)