Almost half of top 50 universities offer crypto classes, study finds

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U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) recently conducted a study regarding educational opportunities at the university level for crypto and blockchains and the results were very interesting. The research showed that, of the top 50 universities around the world, 42% now offer at least one crypto course.

The study, which was administered by Coinbase along with survey firm Qriously, interviewed 675 college students in the United States and reviewed course material at 50 different international universities. Out of the 172 classes that were reviewed, 15% were offered by the schools’ business, finance, law or economics departments and 4% were offered by the social sciences department. The study also showed that interest in learning about crypto and blockchain technology was greatest in the U.S. Of the 18 universities outside of the country, only five offer at least one class on crypto.

If getting the most knowledge about blockchains and crypto is the goal, Stanford and Cornell universities are the right choices. Stanford offers the most options with ten, followed by Cornell with nine. The University of Pennsylvania, with six courses, could be a viable option, as well, or Singapore’s National University, which offers five.

Stanford University’s popularity has resulted in the school opening its Center for Blockchain Research last summer. The center is designed to connect students and faculty from all departments to work on crypto and blockchain-related projects.

Stanford professor of computer science and electrical engineering Dan Boneh, who also is the co-director of the center, indicated that he routinely is presented with three new research ideas every time he talks with a new team in the group. He pointed out, “There are new technical questions being raised by blockchain projects that we would not work on otherwise.”

A computer science professor at Berkeley in California, Dawn Song, indicated that a crypto course she offers has become almost too popular. The class, “Blockchain, Cryptoeconomics, and the Future of Technology, Business and Law,” was forced to turn away over 200 students because the classroom can only hold a maximum of 70.

Song told Coinbase, “Blockchain combines theory and practice and can lead to fundamental breakthroughs in many research areas. It can have really profound and broad-scale impacts on society in many different industries.”

Several other schools in the U.S. offer classes, such as Johns Hopkins University, Princeton and Georgetown University. This will continue to rise in conjunction with the level of student interest. According to the survey, 47% of social science majors indicated that they wanted to learn about crypto, while 34% of computer science and engineering majors shared the same level of interest.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.