Prof. Aviv Zohar is an associate professor at The School of Engineering and Computer Science at The Hebrew University and The Chief Scientist at QED-it. His research interests include the economics of computational systems and protocols, cryptocurrencies, multi-agent systems, game theory, mechanism design, and networks.
In his interview, Zohar gives a Cryptocurrency-101, then explains some of the cyberthreats they are susceptible to, including brute force attacks, double spending, exchange raids, stolen cold wallets, and 51% attacks. He also talks about the regulatory problems with cryptocurrencies - for example, if the bank, or exchange, loses all your crypto - whose responsibility is it to compensate you?
The state comptroller’s warning that ministers ought to refrain from owning crypto, as that would constitute a conflict of interest should they legislate crypto, is strange, Zohar claims, as any such legislation would have very minor affect, if any, on the value of global, non-central-bank controlled currencies. On the other hand, Zohar does think crypto should be regulated, but in Israel it’s mostly unregulated, while the little regulation that is in place is bad - and offers alternatives. He also shares his gruelling experience with receiving and converting a Bitcoin grant that he’d been using for his research. This episode of Lex Cybernetica, hosted by Ido Kenan.
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