Exponential Science

Take a look at the UK CBT launch event with us 👀🇬🇧 We express gratitude to our Founding Academic Members: University of Oxford, University of Birmingham and UCL, to our speakers: Eric van Miltenburg and Lauren Weymouth from Ripple, Oxford's Seung Joo Lee, Birmingham's Karen Elliott and UCL's Jiahua Xu and to all the guests who shared this special evening with us. Looking forward to advancing the national agenda for blockchain together!

Missed MiCA Crypto Alliance and the future of regulations AMA? 🇪🇺 Here’s the recap! Watch Juan Ignacio Ibañez of MiCA Crypto Alliance and Tommaso Astazi of Blockchain for Europe provide a deep dive into the implementation of the EU's landmark crypto regulation, the challenges companies face with compliance, and the importance of industry engagement in shaping policy. Learn about: 1. MiCA Crypto Alliance's work on MiCA implementation: • Standardised methodologies for MiCA's mandatory sustainability disclosures and MiCA white paper requirements. • Providing resources and expertise to help members navigate MiCA compliance in a streamlined way. • Engaging with policymakers and other stakeholders to shape the ongoing implementation of MiCA. 2. Background on Blockchain for Europe and its involvement with MiCA. 3. Challenges in understanding and implementing MiCA: • MiCA is a complex regulation with many ambiguous or unclear provisions, even for industry experts. • Transitional periods and licensing processes vary across EU member states, creating a fragmented landscape. • Ongoing work by EU supervisory authorities to provide clarifying guidelines is crucial. 4. Importance of industry engagement in shaping policy: • Companies have a choice to either just comply with regulations or to proactively engage in shaping them. • Industry expertise is essential for policymakers to properly understand the technology and craft effective regulations. • Associations like Blockchain for Europe and MiCA Crypto Alliance facilitate this dialogue between industry and policymakers. Watch the full version here: https://lnkd.in/dkV2EdJN

Spotted at the Bleeding Edge Summit at ETHDenver 🔎: Walter J. Hernandez speaking about the AMM-based DEXs’ designs and the importance of the efficiency and cost of transactions of their underlying blockchain infrastructure to reduce price slippage for traders and impermanent loss for liquidity providers.

Introducing the winners of Exponential Science Pioneers Award 2025 in the Business Management and Financial Economics Category 💰 Paper: Decentralized Mining in Centralized Pools Journal/Conference: Review of Financial Studies Link: https://lnkd.in/d_PSV7et Authors: Lin William Cong, Zhiguo He, Jiasun Li Judge for the category: Carol Alexander, Professor at the University of Sussex Evaluation feedback: This paper studies the centralization and decentralization forces governing the evolution of mining pools. It models miners’ decisions to allocate hash rates to different PoW mining pools and the competition between pools who charge fees for providing risk-sharing services. The dynamic adjustment of difficulty creates a competitive environment in which too much energy is devoted to hashing. Theoretical predication are made by modelling risk-averse miners with exponential utility functions. These findings are then supported by an empircal study. Insights also extend to PoS protocols.

On Friday, it was announced that our colleague Tom Barbereau won a Best Paper Award from Exponential Science. The paper, Decentralised Finance’s timocratic governance: The distribution and exercise of tokenised voting rights - ScienceDirect, was published in the Technology in Society journal. The Exponential Science Research Council selected the paper based on its evaluation criteria of Impact, Originality, and Feasibility. As a result, it has been awarded the Exponential Science Pioneers Award 2025 in the Law category. Tom Barbereau: “I am honored to receive the Best Paper award for past research conducted with my colleagues at SnT, Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust! Our interdisciplinary work, focusing on decentralized finance, challenges common misconceptions about decentralization in blockchain-based systems. We appreciate the recognition of our research’s impact beyond academia. Today, in my role at TNO Vector, I continue to explore governance questions and strive to drive real-world impact.” We congratulate Tom and his co-authors on this fantastic achievement! Link to the paper ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e2WKvHbs Reilly Smethurst | Orestis Papageorgiou | Johannes Sedlmeir | Gilbert Fridgen | University of Luxembourg

Introducing the winners of Exponential Science Pioneers Award 2025 in the Computer Science Category 💻 Paper: Semantic Sleuth: Identifying Ponzi Contracts via Large Language Models Journal/Conference: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2024) Link: https://lnkd.in/d9hpjwVM Authors: Cong Wu, Jing Chen, Ziwei Wang, Ruichao Liang, Ruiying Du Judge for the category: Yang Liu, Professor at College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University Evaluation feedback: The research presents a very promising approach to detecting Ponzi schemes in decentralized finance, combining innovative methodologies with practical applicability. By leveraging a zero-shot LLM-driven framework, it overcomes the limitations of traditional methods and offers a scalable solution that does not rely on labeled data, making it highly relevant for real-world financial environments and setting a new standard for fraud detection in the industry.

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Exponential Science Pioneers Award 2025: meet the winners 🏆 💻 Computer Science Category Paper: Semantic Sleuth: Identifying Ponzi Contracts via Large Language Authors: Cong Wu, Jing Chen, Ziwei Wang, Ruichao Liang, Ruiying Du 💱 Business Management and Financial Economics Category Paper: Decentralized Mining in Centralized Pools Authors: Lin William Cong, Zhiguo He, Jiasun Li 🧑⚖️ Law Category Paper: Decentralised Finance’s timocratic governance: The distribution and exercise of tokenised voting rights Authors: Tom Barbereau, Reilly Smethurst, Orestis Papageorgiou, Johannes Sedlmeir, Gilbert Fridgen Affiliations: TNO, TNO Vector, SnT, Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg Congratulations to all winners! Thank you for your contribution in advancing research in deep tech and emerging digital technologies 🫡

Celebrating the launch of UK CBT: a night of innovation and collaboration ✨🇬🇧 With around 100 attendees and three founding academic members, we officially launched on 26th February 2025, and we humbly believe it’s a significant milestone in advancing blockchain research and adoption in the UK. Highlights from the evening: 🎙️ Seung Joo Lee (Associate Professor of Finance at University of Oxford), Karen Elliott (Professor of Finance and Fintech at University of Birmingham) and Jiahua Xu (Associate Professor of Financial Computing at UCL) joined the panel discussion ‘University Collaboration for Blockchain Innovation’, moderated by Kristina Lucrezia Cornèr. 🎙️ Lauren Weymouth, director of partnerships at Ripple, in the fireside with Nikhil Vadgama shared insights into Ripple’s global expansion, including its growth to 900 employees and the establishment of offices around the world. 🎙️ Paolo Tasca, Chairman of UK CBT, Nikhil Vadgama, Director of UK CBT, and Eric van Miltenburg, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Ripple highlighted the importance of fostering blockchain innovation and collaboration between academia and industry. 🎙️ Francesco Pierangeli, Deputy Director of UK CBT, provided an overview of the Centre’s achievements during its soft launch phase and its vision for the future. We extend our gratitude to everyone who joined us for this milestone event and look forward to shaping the future of blockchain innovation through UK CBT! 🇬🇧

#HederaCon 2025 was a blast 💫 Our Walter J. Hernandez caught Leemon Baird and lots of insightful panels. Looking forward to many more!