Gillmore Centre Academic Conference 2025

Warwick Business School Gillmore Centre Academic Conference

DeFi & Digital Currencies - The Shard. London 2 September 2025

The conference will bring together an international group of leading scholars conducting innovative theoretical and empirical research on DeFi and digital currencies. Sessions include Decentralized Exchanges, DeFi Lending, Digital Currencies and Regulation and CBDCs. And will continue to build on the growing Gillmore Centre research community and stimulate debate and future research on emerging financial technologies, practices, and regulation.

Organised by Olga Klein, Roman Kozhan, David Skeie, Ruslan Sverchkov, Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj and Bazil Sansom

Agenda Tuesday 2 September
09.20 – 09.30	Welcome and opening remarks - WBS Gillmore Centre with David Skeie and Ram Gopal
Session 1	Digital Currencies and Payments : Chair David Skeie (WBS Gillmore Centre)
09.30 -10.15	“On Bubbles in Cryptocurrency Prices” Presenter: Maarten van Oordt (VU University Amsterdam) PresentationLink opens in a new window PaperLink opens in a new window Discussant: Toni Ahnert (European Central Bank) PresentationLink opens in a new window
10.15 - 11.00	“Defi-ying Gravity: An Empirical Analysis of Cross-Border Bitcoin, Ether and Stablecoin Flows” Presenter: Jan Paulick (BIS) with Raphael Auer (BIS) and Ulf Lewrick (BIS and University of Basel) PresentationLink opens in a new window PaperLink opens in a new window Discussant: Hossein Jahanshahloo (Manchester) PresentationLink opens in a new window
11.00 - 11.30	Coffee break
Session 2	Blockchain Economics : Chair: Ruslan Sverchkov (WBS Gillmore Centre)
11.30 – 12.15	“Achieving Consensus on Blockchains” Presenter: Maxi Guennewig (University of Bonn) with Zahra Ebrahimi (Carnegie Mellon University), Bryan Routledge (Carnegie Mellon University) and Ariel Zetlin-Jones (Carnegie Mellon University) PresentationLink opens in a new window PaperLink opens in a new window Discussant: Yackolley Amoussou-Guenou (Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas) PresentationLink opens in a new window
12.15 – 13.00	“On the Incentive Compatibility of Optimistic Blockchain Mechanisms” Presenter : Jiasun Li (George Mason University) Presentation PaperLink opens in a new window Discussant: Katrin Tinn (McGill University) PresentationLink opens in a new window
13.00 – 14.00	Lunch
14.00 - 15.00	KEYNOTE ADDRESS Christine Parlour (Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley) PresentationLink opens in a new window Moderator: Olga Klein (WBS Gillmore Centre)
15.00 - 15.30	Coffee break
Session 3	DeFi Lending : Chair : Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj (WBS Gillmore Centre)
15.30 - 16.15	“Credit Cycles in Tokenized Real Estate Markets” Presenter : Daniel Ruf (University of Cambridge) with Wenqian Huang (BIS), and Valerie Laturnus (Durham University) PresentationLink opens in a new window PaperLink opens in a new window Discussant: Siema Hashemi (University of Liverpool) PresentationLink opens in a new window
16.15 - 17.00	“Shock Propagation in Decentralized Lending Network” Presenter :Julien Prat (École Polytechnique) with Natkamon Tovanich (TU Wien), Stefania Marcassa (CY Cergy Paris Université), Stefan Kitzler (Austrian Institute of Technology), and Christos Makridis (Arizona State University and University of Nicosia) PresentationLink opens in a new window PaperLink opens in a new window Discussant: Wenqian Huang (BIS) PresentationLink opens in a new window
17.00 – 17.45	“DeFi-ying the Fed? Monetary Policy Transmission to Stablecoin Rates” Presenter : Andrea Barbon (University of St. Gallen) with Jean Barthelemy (Banque de France), and Benoit Nguyen (European Central Bank and Banque de France) PresentationLink opens in a new window PaperLink opens in a new window Discussant: Angela Gallo (Bayes Business School) PresentationLink opens in a new window
17.45 – 17.50	Closing remarks - WBS Gillmore Centre with Roman Kozhan
19.00	Drinks and dinner - Programme participants and programme committee members invited

We thank the programme committee for its time in evaluating the submissions.

Programme Committee: Joseph Abadi, Toni Ahnert, Yackolley Amoussou-Guenou, Bruno Biais, Rhys Bidder, Agostino Capponi, James Chapman, Irem Erten, Rod Garratt, Wenqian Huang, Olga Klein, Roman Kozhan, Michael Kumhof, Alfred Lehar, Katya Malinova, Simon Mayer, Alistair Milne, Cyril Monnet, Andreas Park, Julien Prat, Fahad Saleh, Bazil Sansom, David Skeie, Ruslan Sverchkov, Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj, Kathy Yuan, Anthony Lee Zhang, Zhengge Zhou, Marius Zoican.

Conference Manager: Katherine Higton

Further Information: gillmorecentre@wbs.ac.uk

In addition, we will co-host Bank of England's "Innovations in Money and Payments" conference, which will be held 3-4 September 2025. You can find more details and register your interest for the livestream here:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/events/2025/september/boe-innovation-money-and-payments

The Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology is based in Warwick Business School but draws membership across the University of Warwick and beyond. The Gillmore Centre conducts world-class, cutting-edge research at the intersection of finance and technology. It aims to reinforce Warwick's already formidable interdisciplinary environment, helping to tie together further departmental excellence with the Centre as a research hub exploring the transformative impact of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, mobile payments, cryptocurrencies and crowdfunding platforms. The £3m donation by Clive Gillmore, founder and group chief executive of Mondrian Investment Partners, enables Warwick to continue attracting the world’s best academics and postgraduates. The Gillmore Centre builds on Warwick Business School’s global reputation and core disciplines while infusing the aligned fields of computer science, law and mathematics alongside deep tech innovation to drive applied research with industry partners and start-ups.