University College London (UCL) is seeking submissions about Bitcoin and blockchain technology for its 2016 Thesis/Paper Competition.
What UCL Wants
Located in central London, UCL is the largest postgraduate 
institution in the country by enrollment.
Its Center for Blockchain Technologies made the announcement looking for “research thesis and research papers in areas of blockchain, bitcoin or other financial cryptography research.” They encourage submissions from students from any universities.
Even though they prefer submissions “which have already been graded by a university,” they also accept submissions from “independent researchers and participants from start-ups.”
According to the announcement, UCL wants this competition to “crowd-source blockchain security, risk and financial cryptography research.”
But, UCL has an overall goal of providing the community at large with a better understanding of blockchain systems as well as their vulnerabilities. According to their announcement, “This is primarily a game which is declared of public interest.”
Bitcoin Prizes
To incentivize researchers, the university offers various prizes:
- 5 BTC for a study on criticalities, economic distortions and pathologies in the bitcoin economy or other blockchain systems.
- 5 BTC for a study on risk security and vulnerabilities in cryptocurrency and blockchains.
- 5 BTC for discovery of attacks bugs or flaws in ZK proofs, ring signatures, ECCs, key management and other advanced cryptographic techniques relevant to blockchain tech.
However, their announcement states that “blockchain professionals and well-funded professional researchers will not qualify for cash research prizes unless the jury decides otherwise.”
Partners and Judges
For the event, UCL has partnered with Blockchain.info, Clearmatics, Tramonex and Finyear.
Clearmatics is a startup developing a blockchain-based clearing platform for post-trade processes. Tramonex offers international payment services to small and medium enterprises using blockchain technology. Finyear is a finance publication.
Prize juries come from various universities and institutes. Such institutes include the University of Amsterdam, University of Luxembourg and the University of Edinburgh.
Participants can now submit their papers to UCL. Furthermore, the school has extended the deadline for submissions to October 15, 2016.