Overview

Please join us for the next installment of the Bloomberg Quant (BBQ) Seminar Series. The seminar takes place every month and covers a wide range of topics in quantitative finance.

In this session, chaired by Bruno Dupire, Alexander Lipton will present his current research, followed by several “lightning talks” of 5 minutes each in quick succession. This format gives the audience the opportunity to be exposed to a wider variety of topics.

Access the recording of this virtual event here.

Agenda

5:30pm

Keynote: Alexander Lipton, Chief Technical Officer, Sila Money; Professor and Dean’s Fellow, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Connection Science Fellow, MIT 

Stable and Trade Coins in Retrospective and Perspective

Existing banking and payment systems, while still working, are obsolete and no longer aligned with the constantly changing requirements of the modern world. While open-access Internet protocols have unleashed a wave of creativity and growth in numerous fields, banking is not one of them. The reason stems mostly from the fact that successful open-access protocols for money and identity, while sorely needed, are conspicuously absent at present. We argue that a regulatory compliant, fiat-backed tokenized medium of exchange, can help to fill this gap. The corresponding token is an electronic analog of cash, with all its pluses and minuses. While such tokens can have numerous fintech applications, we consider just a few representative examples. Experience shows that all decentralized crypto coins are inherently unstable, which makes them less than useful for commercial applications. Unfortunately, building a successful stable token is hard.

Contrary to the often-made claims, it is not possible to build a truly decentralized stable token, so that any potentially successful stable coin has to be partially centralized. The degree of decentralization can vary. We describe three approaches, including fully collateralized custodial tokens, partially collateralized custodial tokens, and dynamically stabilized tokens, and conclude that only fully collateralized tokens can be stable, even under extreme circumstances. We argue that asset-backed digital trade coins have a great future as much needed counterbalance to fiat currencies.

6:15pm

Lightning talks

A lightning talk is a very short presentation lasting only 5 minutes.  Several ones will be delivered in a single session by different speakers in quick succession.

  • Mehdi El-Amrani (Bloomberg L.P.) – Modelling the coronavirus epidemic
  • Diana Pan (The Museum of Modern Art ) – Visitor journey at MoMA
  • Dmitry Belaev (Bloomberg L.P.) – Can MICE fill the holes?
  • Ziwen Ye (Stevens Institute of Technology) – COVID-19 Impact on the U.S. Equity Market
  • David Mitchell (Bloomberg L.P) – Dislocation in bond ETFs
  • Greg Pelts (Wells Fargo) – Some like it smooth

Keynote Speaker

Photo of Alexander Lipton

Alexander Lipton

Alexander Lipton is Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer of Sila, Partner at Numeraire Financial, Partner at Investimizer, Visiting Professor and Dean’s Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Connection Science Fellow at MIT. He sits on Boards of Directors of Sila, and Zilliqa, and on Advisory Boards of several organizations, including Clearmatics, Endor, Katalysen, Sygnum, and UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies.

In 2016 he left Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he served for ten years in various senior managerial roles including Quantitative Solutions Executive and Co-Head of the Global Quantitative Group. Earlier, he held senior managerial positions at Citadel Investment Group, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Bankers Trust. In parallel, Alex held several prestigious professorial appointments at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, NYU, Oxford University, Imperial College, and the University of Illinois. Before switching to finance, Alex was a Full Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois and a Consultant at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In 2000 Alex was awarded the first ever Quant of the Year Award by Risk Magazine. Alex published eight books and more than a hundred scientific papers. His most recent book “Financial Engineering – Selected Works of Alexander Lipton” was published in May of 2018. He is currently working on his next book (with Adrien Treccani) “Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers: Mathematics, Technology, and Economics” which will be published in the first half of 2020.

When & Where

Wednesday, April 15, 2020
5:30 pm – 7:00 pm ET

Webinar