[dionyziz]

I'm doing a PhD on cryptography/blockchains and working on the Cardano cryptocurrency (https://cardanoroadmap.com/). It's very technically interesting and challenging (though it pays a fraction of what I used to earn as a Software Engineer in a big company in Zurich.)

I spend most of my time thinking about mathematical problems that I feel are impactful and important. The solutions make use of theoretical computer science (computational reductions and such). Validating the results requires running small Monte Carlo style experiments typically written in C++, Python, or Javascript. This isn't rocket science code, but it's still challenging to think what kind of assumptions and constraints to put in the model / code and which ones to leave out (although the coding part itself is pretty standard.) Other than that I mostly write TeX :)

But our solutions are implemented by the IOHK software engineers that are working on the production software implementation of Cardano. It's quite interesting to guide that work through our papers, as it handles a multibillion dollar market cap and the responsibility for making sure everything is secure is big. As for social impact, this people may disagree with, but I feel we're building next generation economies and this will impact the whole of society in making it more egalitarian, giving access to money to everyone, and making salaries more equal across the globe.

[flowless]

Cardano is really nice and also a very good Haskell marketing opportunity ;)