You can learn about crypto in Boston without starting with a prediction about the price of Bitcoin. The area has a blockchain association, university research teams, and free course materials that explain what the technology does. Those are useful places to begin if you want to understand the subject before deciding whether to do anything with your money.
The local scene includes developers, researchers, students, and people working in finance. Their interests overlap, but attending an industry event, taking a class, and choosing an investment are three different activities. A room full of enthusiasm doesn’t make them the same.
Meeting people working on crypto in Boston
The Boston Blockchain Association dates its beginnings to a group of friends meeting at a Boston WeWork in 2019. It now runs educational events and workshops, connects people working in the field, and advocates on blockchain policy in Massachusetts.
Its membership includes people from startups, established institutions, and universities. Author John Hargrave is a founding member and is listed as the association’s membership committee chair.
The association is volunteer-led and lists opportunities in programming, technology, communications, and student outreach. That gives you another way to participate if you would rather help organize something than introduce yourself around a room.
Start with an event’s actual subject and organizer. A discussion about regulation will be different from a developer workshop, and both can be useful. Read the registration terms before making plans, including whether an event is online, public, or intended for members.
An MIT class you can take from your sofa
MIT OpenCourseWare publishes Blockchain and Money, Gary Gensler’s graduate-level course taught in fall 2018. The materials include recorded lectures, slides, readings, study questions, and assignments. They are freely available online.
The course begins with Bitcoin, then examines distributed ledgers, smart contracts, and possible uses of blockchain in finance. You can work through the lectures in order or read the syllabus first to see how much of the subject you already know.
The date matters. These are recordings of a 2018 course, not a current enrollment offer or a guide to today’s regulations and market conditions. They are a way to study the underlying questions: how people keep financial records, why trust matters, and what a shared ledger changes. You can do that without buying a token.
Following the research in Cambridge
At the MIT Media Lab, Neha Narula directs the Digital Currency Initiative. Her research interests include cryptocurrencies and distributed systems. The team also includes Bitcoin Core developer Cory Fields, whose work concerns the software that helps the network operate.
The initiative’s published research and talks cover questions about Bitcoin, stablecoins, payments, and the technical and financial risks involved. Recent work includes research on public blockchains and regulated financial institutions, as well as stablecoin use in Africa.
For readers who prefer a conversation to a paper, the site links to interviews and recorded discussions. It also introduces DCI Global, a research and education network. You don’t have to turn every interest into a networking event; reading or watching the work is a reasonable first step.
The less glamorous part is keeping records
My own experience with crypto includes doing the crypto side of my tax paperwork and sending the schedule to my accountant. I tried three trackers and preferred CoinLedger. That is my experience with the software, rather than a claim that one product fits everyone.
The IRS’s digital asset guidance explains what records to keep and how different transactions are reported. Useful records include acquisition and disposal dates, amounts, dollar values, and the cost basis of assets sold. Selling, exchanging, and receiving crypto can create different reporting questions, so bring the transaction history to a tax professional rather than relying on a meetup conversation.
Save those records as you go. Reconstructing a year of transactions is a poor way to spend the evening before a tax appointment.
