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By JEFF JOHN ROBERTS 

Among the classes on offer at Cornell University this year are “The Anthropology of Money” and “Introduction to Blockchains, Cryptocurrencies, and Smart Contracts.

” Those are just two of the 28 courses at the Ivy League school related to blockchain, the popular new technology that creates a permanent ledger across multiple computers.

While Cornell has embraced the blockchain phenomenon more than other schools, it’s hardly alone. According to new research from Coinbase Reports, a growing number of universities are teaching the subject across multiple disciplines.

Here is a chart from the report, which show how other prominent schools, including Stanford and UC Berkeley, are offering multiple blockchain courses:



The popularity of blockchain on campus is remarkable in part because the technology is still new and because some still associate currencies like Bitcoin (which is run on a blockchain) as the province of geeks and cyber-criminals.


Back in 2014, when David Yermack, the finance department chair at New York University Stern School of Business, first offered his course on blockchain and financial services, he says only 35 people signed up.

Now, according to the report, the course is packed with 235 students and he is teaching it both semesters.

More broadly, while a lot of the teaching on blockchain has grown out of traditional courses on cryptography, the subject is also popping up in numerous other disciplines, and interest spans the traditional divisions between engineering and social sciences.

“Coinbase’s analysis found that of the 172 classes listed by the top 50 universities, 15 percent were offered by business, economics, finance, and law departments, and four percent were in social science departments such as anthropology, history, and political science,” the report notes.

The multi-disciplinary appeal likely reflects how blockchain projects typically revolve around decentralized communities that rely on incentives (such as cryptocurrency rewards) to maintain a common, indestructible ledger system. Building a successful blockchain thus requires expertise in fields as diverse as game theory, information systems and cybersecurity. And as legal scholars

Primavera de Filipi and Aaron Wright explained in their groundbreaking book Blockchain and the Law, the technology is also poised to remake certain social and economic rules of society.The report also included a survey that found a high level of interest in blockchain among students. This included nearly half of social science majors reporting that they would like to take a blockchain class.

Finally, the report found that interest in blockchain was particularly strong at American universities. Only five of the 18 international universities among the list surveyed by Coinbase—which was based on the 50 top universities as ranked by U.S. News and World Report—offer at least one class on blockchain or cryptocurrency.

Coinbase itself is treating the findings as good news, in part because the company is actively recruiting students with blockchain experience. According to a source close to the company, Coinbase will be kicking off a national tour to provide “crypto 101” sessions on campuses that have demonstrated a strong interest in blockchain.

The company is also conducting a recruiting tour that includes a stop at Howard University on September 13, and at Princeton, Duke and numerous other schools.

CryptoKitties has proven good for raising the public’s awareness of blockchain and cryptocurrency, and so a museum in Germany is creating an exhibit that will use the game to explain the technologies.

Dappler Labs, the owner of CryptoKitties, makes blockchain-based collectible cats. Now CryptoKitties has partnered with digital art firm Meural to unveil an art exhibit at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. The exhibit, “Bringing Blockchain to Life,” will showcase the inner workings of blockchain technology in real time.

CryptoKitties is not a cryptocurrency itself, but it is built to encourage people to learn how to use the alternative currencies such as Ethereum as well as blockchain, the decentralized and transparent ledger system.

It became a sensation after it debuted in November 2017, but the activity has slowed as the craze over cryptocurrency has subsided. Fans have bid as much as $200,000 to buy rare kitties, and the company’s spinout firm, Dapper Labs, raised $12 million form venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures in March.

Tens of millions of dollars in transactions have been conducted on the CryptoKitties marketplace to date.But cryptocurrency and blockchain aren’t mainstream yet. Institutional investors have been wary of the fraud associated with various cryptocurrency schemes, and regulators have stepped in to monitor the market.




Above: CryptoKitties has handled tens of millions of dollars in transactions.Image Credit: CryptoKitties

CryptoKitties is also lauded for pioneering a use case for blockchain technology beyond cryptocurrencies. Often referred to as “cryptocollectibles” or “non-fungible tokens,” the philosophy and technology behind CryptoKitties serves as a proof of concept for blockchain’s potential to reshape art and culture.

Like traditional works of art, each CryptoKitty is distinct, and has valuations for individual cats ranging from six cents to six-figures. In May, a CryptoKitty displayed at Christie’s Auction House in New York sold for $140,000, with proceeds funding the Foundation for Art & Blockchain.

“CryptoKitties’ good design and appealing aesthetics are responsible for introducing entirely new audiences to the potential of blockchain technology,” says Roham Gharegozlou, cofounder and CEO of CryptoKitties, in a statement. “Emerging technology often has its most innovative work conducted in the art world — the Kitties are artworks themselves.

Our exhibit at ZKM continues our mission of demystifying the blockchain so that the people that can benefit from it most — whether they’re creators and consumers, or artists and their fans — can be a part of the technology’s future.”CryptoKitties’ “Bringing Blockchain to Life” exhibit will be featured as part of ZKM’s ongoing, boundary pushing “Open Codes” exhibition.

According to ZKM’s website, the exhibition’s works will “visualize and explain the complex dynamics of codes, and the way in which they are increasingly shaping the way we live and perceive the world.”Meural’s Digital Art Canvases will display CryptoKitties as digital artworks.

“We’re excited to be able to help CryptoKitties make their museum debut by providing them with a physical home that’s worthy of a museum setting”, says Vladimir Vukicevic, CEO of Meural, in a statement.

“Our product, the Meural Canvas, is an ideal way for crypto art enthusiasts to show off their collectibles in a way that does justice to their value, and makes them easy to display and enjoy.

By partnering with CryptoKitties for this event, we hope to help general audiences envision how cryptocollectibles might fit into their everyday lives.”

Anthony Pompliano, founder and partner, Morgan Creek Digital Assets has predicted that bitcoin could fall as low as $3,000 in a complete turnaround from one of the market’s most bullish positions.In a post, Pompliano stated that his January prediction of a $50,000 year-end bitcoin price was wide of the mark by as much as four years.

Changed Timelines

In July, CCN reported that Morgan Capital Management founder Mark Yusco predicted a bitcoin year-end price of $25,000, followed by a subsequent run culminating in a price exceeding $500,000 by 2024.Pompliano however, says that after examining more data, this optimistic position has been reviewed.He stated:

“Parabolic increases in price continue to take longer — each parabolic run is measured from the last all-time high to the new all-time high. The first rapid price appreciation took just over 300 days (2010-2011) and the second took over 900 days (2011-2013). The last parabolic price increase peaked at ~$20,000 (2013-2017) and took almost 1,500 days to complete.”

According to Pompliano, an extrapolation of this trend shows that bitcoin is unlikely to hit another all-time high until the middle of 2023, more than 2,000 days after the previous all-time high.

Measuring historical bear market data shows that the first bear market lasted for about 160 days in 2011, with the next one lasting 400 days between 2013 and 2014.

Using that data to construct a trend Pompliano says, the current bear market is likely to go on for about 650 days.In the event that this happens, what that would for crypto markets is that a full recovery from negative price movements is not due until the 3rd quarter of 2019, which is substantially longer than what most market participants  presently anticipate.

According to Pompliano, this could mean a high level of “pain and discomfort” for investors.Referencing his earlier predictions he says:

“It is never fun to admit that you were wrong about something you said publicly. However, it is important to constantly test your own assumptions and beliefs. As I’ve tested myself over the last few weeks, it became obvious that I needed to gather better data and rebuild the prediction model.”

In Pompliano’s view, a review of available data suggests a number of unpleasant outcomes, notably that the price of bitcoin is more likely to hit $3,000 in the short term than anywhere near $10,000, which means that there is still a price decline of roughly 50% ahead.

Concluding, Pompliano reiterated that he still beleives bitcoin will hit $50,000, albeit in 2022 or 2023. His advice to investors is to buckle up and prepare for the worst while doing their own research in the interim.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has rejected a total of nine applications to list and trade various Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from three different applicants, according to a three separate orders published by the SEC today, August 22.The disapprovals come one day ahead of the anticipated deadline, August 23, stipulated for a pair of BTC ETFs that had been submitted by ProShares in conjunction with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) ETF exchange NYSE Arca.

The SEC has now rejected a further seven proposed ETFs alongside the ProShares pair –– these being five further proposed ETFs from Direxion, also for listing on NYSE Arca –– and two proposals from GraniteShares, for listing on CBOE.For all three disapprovals, the SEC has stated that:

"[T]he Commission is disapproving this proposed rule change because, as discussed below, the Exchange has not met its burden under the Exchange Act and the Commission's Rules of Practice to demonstrate that its proposal is consistent with the requirements of the Exchange Act Section 6(b)(5), in particular the requirement that a national securities exchange's rules be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices."

The SEC has today reinforced its qualms over inadequate “resistance to price manipulation” in an insufficiently sized BTC derivatives market. In the case of ProShares’ two ETFs –– and repeated in the two other disapproval orders –– the SEC has stated that:

“Among other things, the Exchange has offered no record evidence to demonstrate that bitcoin futures markets are ‘markets of significant size.’ That failure is critical because, as explained below, the Exchange has failed to establish that other means to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices will be sufficient, and therefore surveillance-sharing with a regulated market of significant size related to bitcoin is necessary.”

As a March 2018 registration statement from the SEC noted, “the [ProShares] Funds do not intend to hold Bitcoin Futures Contracts through expiration, but instead intend to either close or ‘roll’ their respective positions.” This had been specifically designated as a potential risk for the two ETFs in question –– in addition to the “extreme volatility and low liquidity” attributed to both Bitcoin spot and derivatives markets.In today’s three orders, the SEC has however notably stated that:

"[The agency] emphasizes that its disapproval does not rest on an evaluation of whether bitcoin, or blockchain technology more generally, has utility or value as an innovation or an investment."

The SEC’s fresh disapprovals echo the concerns the agency had already articulated in its initial rejection of a high-profile Bitcoin ETF application from the Winklevoss twins in March 2017:

”When the spot market is unregulated –– there must be significant, regulated derivatives markets related to the underlying asset with which the Exchange can enter into a surveillance-sharing agreement.”

This July the SEC rejected the Winklevoss’ petition following their initial application’s denial, in which the twins claim that crypto markets are “uniquely resistant to manipulation. ” In their rejection of the petition, the agency said that “the record before the Commission does not support such a conclusion.

”At the beginning of August, the SEC delayed its decision over yet another Bitcoin ETF application –– this time filed by by investment firm VanEck and financial services company SolidX, for trading on CBOE.

Notably, instead of proposing a Bitcoin futures-based fund, the application proposed a physically-backed model, which will raise the further question of custody.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $6,380, down about 2.2 percent on the day to press time.