Ana Nicenko
Despite the cryptocurrency market currently going through a bearish decline, the adoption of digital assets around the world is growing as governments and institutions become open to their use – including a small private university outside Boston.
Namely, Bentley University in Waltham, a city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, is one of the first educational institutions in the country to accept tuition fee payments made in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), the university announced on May 3.
The business school will be accepting these payments through its partnership with one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world (and the largest in the U.S.), Coinbase. It also plans to accept donations and gifts in crypto.
One of Bentley’s students and an early crypto adopter Alex Kim who launched the Bentley Blockchain Association in the fall of 2021, commented on the recent development, explaining that:
“Students have a real interest in knowing more about blockchain, decentralized finance and cryptocurrency investments. These technologies are influencing the industries where they will be working.”
Thanks to the student interest, Bentley University has also introduced a new crypto finance course that will begin in the fall of 2022 and will focus on blockchain applications and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Bentley on the importance of crypto
In its announcement, the school echoed Kim’s position, highlighting the increasing importance of digital assets in the global economy, the creation of startups, payments of salaries, payment tracking, and even minor things like purchasing tickets to games and concerts.
The business school also quoted a study by the Pew Research Center, which has found that over 41 million Americans, or 16% of U.S. adults had invested in, traded, or used crypto. Furthermore, the school referred to Fortune Business Insights which projected the global crypto market would more than double by 2028.
Interestingly, in late March a school in Dubai took steps to bring crypto into the education sector by accepting tuition payments made in both Bitcoin and Ethereum through a digital platform that automatically converts crypto into the United Arab Emirates dirhams (AED).
Meanwhile, the entire crypto market is suffering a major decline as more than $370 billion has left its market capitalization in a single week, as Finbold reported earlier. Its total market cap now stands at $1.37 trillion.
