Ledger, the first peer-reviewed academic journal on Bitcoin

Ledger, the first peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to cryptocurrency, has launched today.

With a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh and the MIT Media Lab, and with a partial grant from Coin Center, Ledger will attempt to lead research in the cryptocurrency space.

In an interview, Dr. Peter R. Rizun, co-editor-in-chief of Ledger, said that he wanted to establish an efficient peer review mechanism for the Bitcoin community. He said:

“I want to establish a channel for academic and interdisciplinary communication, so that those thoughtful minds in the fields of economics, sociology, physics, law, and politics can make more contributions to the evolution of Bitcoin.”

At present, the most important contributions to Bitcoin come from core developers.

“I believe Bitcoin would benefit from more diverse leadership,” he added.

More than just Bitcoin

Richard Ford Burley, editor of the Ledger, shared the magazine’s goals:

“Ledger aims to provide something that has been missing in the cryptocurrency world: an academic, peer-reviewed forum where people from multiple disciplines can come together to discuss new ideas and research.”

In addition, Ford Burley also talked about how Ledger is not just about Bitcoin, saying that its editorial team is very interested in everything related to cryptocurrencies, including shared distributed ledgers, cryptographic proof-of-work systems, and distributed consensus.

It is reported that most of Ledger's scholars are from Oxford University, Stanford University, Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke University. The group plans to publish its first journal through the library system of the University of Pittsburgh at the end of the first quarter of 2016.

In addition, Ledger will "time-stamp" all published articles through the Bitcoin blockchain and urge authors to digitally sign their manuscripts.

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