Pietro Saggese is Assistant Professor at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy, since November 2023.
After completing his studies in complex systems and economics at the University of Turin, where he obtained both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics, Pietro received his PhD from the Economics and Data Science department of IMT Lucca in July 2021. During his doctoral research, Pietro focused on identifying arbitrage activities within the Bitcoin ecosystem and the investors participating in them, providing empirical evidence that arbitrageurs are few, sophisticated, and specialized users, in contrast with theoretical assumptions from traditional finance.
From May 2021 until October 2023, Pietro worked as a Scientist at AIT – Austrian Institute of Technology, in a joint program with the Complexity Science Hub. During this period, his research primarily centered on cryptoasset analytics, and in particular on investigating the interplay between Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocols deployed in Ethereum and traditional finance, to gain insights into the potential risks and opportunities associated with them.
Pietro’s current research interests include cryptofinance, cryptoasset analytics, CBDCs, and their socio-economic implications.