The following open letter was written by Dan Bourne (Stanford), Joseph Bonneau (NYU), Julia Fanty (Carnegie Mellon), Ben Fish (Yare), Ali Jewels (Cornell), Farinas Cousanfer (UC San Diego), Andrew Miller (Arbna Champaign), and CIAM CHAMPANIE. (Stanford), Pramod Viswanath (Princeton).
This is a multi-select question.
Algorand, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Axelar, Babylon, Cardano, Cosmos, Eigenlayer, Espresso, Flashbots, Oasis, Starkware, Sui.
Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) protocol, digital signature, formal verification, maximum extractable value (MEV), public key encryption, proof of work, rollup, trusted execution environment (TEE) used in blockchain systems, verifiable random functions (VRF), proof of zero knowledge.
Which of the following applies to the above companies, projects, and concepts?
a) They were invented/created by researchers employed at the deep roots of academic institutions.
b) They fueled and converted the crypto/blockchain industry.
c) They show how important academic innovation is for the crypto/blockchain industry.
d) All of the above.
The answer is D. The lion’s share of these innovations took place primarily in the US at universities.
Cryptocurrency and the US Federal Government
Both the White House and Congress are working to support, accelerate and strengthen US control, supporting innovation in the crypto economy and the blockchain technology that strengthens it. The White House has established a presidential working group on digital assets markets, but two main laws, Genius and the Stable Bill, are pending in Congress. There is a cry of regulatory and legislative reform that prioritizes and supports crypto innovation while ensuring robust protections for consumers. The effort to achieve these things wisely is to be praised.
But at the same time, we are seeing a significant cut in US academic research funding. The 2025 White House budget proposal includes a 55% reduction in the National Science Foundation (NSF). In the meantime, China increased its budget by 10% last year. NSF is the source of most federal funding for research into computer science at US universities. This is the main source of funding that has driven crypto innovations as listed above. Companies provide little funding for academic research because they are not product specific. Thus, NSF refunds mean repaying US scientists, including major crypto innovations.
Innovation pipeline refunds
We are academic researchers in the field of Crypto, representing five universities in the United States. In addition to our education, we research and train doctoral students.
Market capitalisation is a short-term indicator of the health of the crypto industry, but the number of doctoral students studying blockchain is long-term. It reflects the depth of scientific leadership in the future. That pipeline is already thinner. Some of us were unable to take on new doctoral students this year due to uncertainty in the US fundraising environment. And we are not alone.
Some of the companies listed above were co-founded by former members of our academic group or by us. Successful future founders of US and PhD student crypto companies will not only start a company if future members of our group disappear along with scientific funds. They are also the engines that are academic and ultimately strengthening industry research, and are doing the brain and labor intensive work behind technological innovations that lead to faster, safer blockchains. PhD students in our group played an important role in creating or advancing many of the concepts in the second list above. So are the breakthroughs they would have brought to the industry if they disappeared.
We are also better teachers when we are funded to do our research and stay in the cusp of code innovation. Equipped with the latest advances for students. That means stronger technical leaders educated in the US
Conclusion
Better regulations and laws could benefit from cryptography. However, US leadership in crypto is not secured by policy alone. Science is at the forefront of code innovation, and American universities have long been a great power.
If you’re a farmer trying to ensure a strong harvest, it’s wise to upgrade your equipment and expand your field. However, if you stop planting seedlings, there is no machine to save crops.
If you care about US leadership in cryptography, contact Congressional representatives and the senator. It urges them to support research funding that has made American universities into a nursery for global scientific and technical leadership.
author:
Dan Boneh is a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University and advises several projects in the A16Z Crypto and blockchain space.
Joseph Bonneau is an associate professor of computer science at New York University. He served as an advisor to Zcash, Algorand, Chia, O(1)Labs and Espresso Systems, and a research partner at A16Z Crypto.
Julia Fanty is an associate professor of electrical engineering at Angel Jordan at Carnegie Mellon University. She is co-director of the Cryptocurrency and Contracts (IC3) initiative, a member of the Department of Commerce Information Security and Privacy Advisory Committee (ISPAB), and a member of the UK Financial Conduct Commission’s Synthetic Data Expert Group (SDEG).
Ben Fish is an assistant professor of computer science at Yale University. He is the co-founder of the Espresso System and advises several prominent crypto projects, including Cheer and Filecoin.
Ari Juels is Weill Family Foundation, Professor Joan and Sanford I. Weill I. Weill, and a Computer Science faculty member at Cornell University. He is also co-director of the Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3) initiative, Chief Scientist at Chainlink Labs, and author of the Crypto Thriller novel The Oracle.
Farinaz Koushanfar is the donated chair of Nemat-Nasser, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, San Diego. She is also the founding co-director of the UCSD Center for Machine Intelligence, Computing and Security (MIC) and a research scientist at ChainLink Labs. She is a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, and the National Academy of Invention (NAI).
Andrew Miller is an adjunct associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is also co-director of Flashbots (X), co-director of the Cryptocurrency and Contracts (IC3) initiative and is an executive of the Zcash Foundation. He is an advisor for Cycles, Chain Links, Parakeets, Creeks and PI2.
Ciamac Moallemi is the director of business for William Von Muuffling, a professor of business at the Graduate School of Briger Family Digital Finance Lab at Columbia University. He is also an advisor to several companies in blockchain and fintech space.
David Tse is a professor of Thomas Kailath and Guanghan Xu Engineering at Stanford University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a recipient of the 2017 Claude E. Shannon Award and the 2019 IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal. He is also the co-founder of the Defi protocol currently ranked 8th in TVL (Total Value Locked).
Pramod Viswanath is Forest G. Hamrick, professor of engineering at Princeton University. He is a central contributor to the senses.
