UCL CBT Launches Covid-19 Task Force With INATBA & EU Commission
The International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA), together with the European Commission and University College London – Centre for Blockchain Technologies, today launched a global initiative that convenes public and private entities committed to quickly activate blockchain solutions that address challenges caused by the COVID pandemic.
The COVID Task Force will convene key players in the global blockchain ecosystem to identify deployable technology solutions that address governmental, social and commercial challenges caused by COVID. Working on an expedited timetable, the Task Force will analyze, sort, package and present solutions to governments and organizations to deliver real value quickly
UCL CBT Discussion Paper Series Q1 2020
The first quarter of 2020’s Discussion Paper Series featuring three papers in the print edition and a further two papers online is now available. The titles of the featured papers are:
- A percolation model for the emergence of the Bitcoin Lightning Network
- Laying the foundation for smart contract development: an integrated engineering process model
- Libra or Librae? Basket based stablecoins to mitigate foreign exchange volatility spillovers
- The Impact of Taproot and Schnorr on Address Clustering Analysis of Bitcoin Transactions
- Exploring DLT and Blockchain for alternative finance
The next series will be looking at the theme of Blockchain and Resilience. Read more about the submission guidelines on our website.
UCL CBT Online Seminar Series
Join us for an online series of seminars on blockchain technology. We are scheduling one near the end of each month for the foreseable future. Register via eventbrite to receive the webinar details. Our first seminar is on April 30 at 18:00 UK time. Our speaker will be Nicola Dimitri on the topic of “War of Attrition and the cost of smart contracts in Ethereum”.
UCL CBT Jobs
We need help with projects that require data collection and analysis of companies and ecosystems related to emerging technologies. If you are interested in working with us for these part-time fixed-fee positions, please apply below.
Hedera Hashgraph Virtual Hackathon
UCL CBT is supporting the Hedera Hashgraph Hackathon! Find out more here and register to take part here.
- Registration Opens: April 7th
- Hackathon Dates and Duration: Hacking begins May 1st and ends June 12th, 6 weeks total
- Hackathon Focus: We are focusing on projects that will take advantage of our latest service, the Hedera Consensus Service to verifiably prove an action, perform real-time audits, or take advantage of fairly ordered transactions.
- Prizes: Over $35,000 worth of HBARS, cash prizes, hardware prizes as well as acceptance into an accelerator program run by a partner.
News from CBT Associates
Horst Treiblmaier has given a presentation on the potentials of blockchain/DLT to improve sustainability entitled “Blockchain and Sustainability – Overhyped or Undervalued” at NonCon 2020 (3-5 April 2020). This conference was originally scheduled to take place in Vienna, Austria but due to COVID-19 it was held as an online conference that was free to participants from all over the world. Find out more about it here.
Michael Fell, Alexandra Schneiders, Anna Gorbatcheva and Charlotte Johnson from the UCL Energy Institute have released a prototype online version of their peer-to-peer energy trading board game, Watts the Deal?. In the game, players trade energy between each other to meet their daily electricity demands, and pay each other in WattCoins. They have Bartlett Innovation Fund funding to develop a suite of discussion and learning materials to accompany the game, which also has a print-at-home DIY version. In due course the game will be useful as a tool to explain some of the advantages and disadvantages of distributed ledger-based P2P trading.
Nicola Dimitri gave a seminar at the Blockchain Center University of Zurich on the topic of “War Of Attrition And The Cost Of Smart Contracts In Ethereum”. Details on the talk are available here.
Hossein Nabilou won an award for his paper on Central Bank Digital Currencies from the American Institute for Economic Research.
UCL CBT Blockchain Research Showcase Presentations
The UCL CBT ran its first blockchain research showcase where awardees from the first Call for Proposals presented their findings. The event took place on Thursday 20th February at UCL in London, UK. Learn more about the research proposals and watch the presentations here.
Community News, Events and Jobs
Future Learn have several courses that are directly releveant to the pandemic:
- COVID-19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus, with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
- Managing COVID-19 in General Practice, with St George’s, University of London
- How to Teach Online: Providing Continuity for Students, our very first FutureLearn branded course
UCL CBT are creating an online blockchain course with Future Learn – look out for that in the summer!