When we started the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) at MIT, our goal was to create an environment that enabled diversity of work and thought on cryptocurrencies among students, researchers and open-source developers. Amidst block size debates and proclamations that Bitcoin is dead, we’re glad the first action we took was to offer positions in a neutral academic environment at the MIT Media Lab to Wlad, Cory and Gavin to continue their open-source development work on Bitcoin.