Nearly half of the world’s top universities teach blockchain

Eight out of the top 10 universities that offer blockchain courses are based in the US, according to a new report compiled by popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.

The research has more broadly uncovered that 42 percent of the world’s top universities offer at least one academically endorsed course.

Leading the way is Stanford which offers 10 blockchain-based courses. Cornell University, and the University of Pennsylvania take up second and third place by offering nine and six blockchain courses, respectively.

There are only two universities in the top ten that aren’t based in the US. The National University of Singapore placed fourth on the list with five courses, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich came in seventh, with three courses.

Courses are not limited to computer sciences as one might think. Rather, they are being offered across a range of disciplines for those on major’s from anthropology to finance. If anything, this is an indication of blockchain’s perceived breadth of application, and how it is expected to impact a variety of areas of society.

This has been a growing trend, back in 2014 NYU Stern (the university’s business college) launched a cryptocurrency course, with the help from David Yermack. However, the field of academia has come a long way since then, with NYU now being ninth on the list, offering two cryptocurrency and blockchain courses.

However, some still remain perplexed as to why there is such a demand in courses of this nature.

Matt Blaze, a cryptography researcher and an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has been critical of academia’s crypto-invasion.

“I’m puzzled by demand for degree programs in blockchain,” he said on Twitter. “It’s like having a degree in binary search trees, an at least equally important and interesting data structure.”

Universities then have not been immune to the hype around blockchain. At least in an academic setting, we can hope to see blockchain graduates approaching the field with a critical eye, supported by a strong foundation of knowledge, and rationality.