A look at some of the top universities offering cryptocurrency and blockchain programs

The cryptocurrency sector has exploded in the last couple of years. It has quickly grown from a speculative industry to one that is seeing rapid mainstream adoption. This exponential growth rate has created more jobs in blockchain and digital assets. However, crypto education is not exactly on par with the rest of the traditional academic space.

This has resulted in a gap between the number of qualified professionals and the current requirements for labor in the industry. Fortunately, many of the top colleges in the world have recognized the potential of these emerging technologies and have begun offering cryptocurrency and blockchain programs.

Here’s a look at some of the top colleges and the crypto programs they offer:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT):

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the leading technical colleges in the world. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before they started offering programs on crypto and blockchain. Today, MIT offers more than 10 courses on digital assets and the underlying distributed ledger technology. It also boasts distinguished faculty members, such as the current chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler.

National University of Singapore (NUS): Another pioneer in crypto education is the National University of Singapore. It currently offers 10 crypto courses on topics such as distributed ledgers, banking and enterprise applications, payments and financial services innovation. The college also conducts regular seminars on blockchain technology each year. The college also ranked first in CoinDesk’s Top Universities for Blockchain (2021) with a perfect score of 100/100, based on parameters such as research output, campus blockchain offerings, employment outcomes, costs, etc.

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (ITT-KGP): As one of the premier technical colleges in India, IIT-KGP was quick to add a crypto course to its offerings. The free 12-week program will cover blockchain consensus, smart contracts, decentralized identity management, blockchain interoperability and blockchain applications. The program’s first batch was conducted from 24 January to 15 April 2022.

Cornell University: This Ivy League college offers over a dozen blockchain courses on distributed consensus, blockchain applications, cryptocurrencies, ledgers, etc. It also partners with some of the biggest names in the industry for its frequent seminars. For example, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was allowed to participate in his “Crypto Boot Camp”. Cornell also has Emin Gun Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs, as one of its faculty members.

Harvard University: Harvard has teamed up with Coursera to offer half a dozen online crypto programs. One of the courses – Breakthrough Innovation with Blockchain Technology – looks at blockchain and AI’s use cases across several industries. Harvard also has a burgeoning crypto community with more than 200 members called “Crypto 101”, where students can develop crypto projects under the guidance of an incubator on campus.

CoinDesk’s Top Universities for Blockchain (2021) listed and ranked 230 different schools worldwide based on the pedigree of their cryptocurrency courses. Among these schools were famous institutions such as Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley, University of Zurich, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, London University College and so on.

There are several institutes in India that also offer such programs. For example, IIT Madras began offering blockchain software engineering certification in 2020. Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) and IIT Kanpur also offer crypto and blockchain certification programs.