Since then, higher education institutions are teaching cryptocurrency. It was once considered to be a fraud and is often associated with black currency.

Students are opting to choose degrees in digital currency and blockchain instead of traditional Finance or Economics degrees. DeFi courses are also being offered by more universities.

DailyCoin spoke with two UNIC students (University of Nicosia) about their experiences as blockchain-tutoring students. This university was the first to provide such courses since 2013. It’s also the first university to accept for tuition payments.

UNIC offers two Master’s degrees in blockchain: blockchain & digital currency and computer science (with specialization in blockchain technologies). UNIC also offers free MOOCs (Motor Online Courses) on digital currencies and computer science. It has many academic certification programs.

Cryptocurrency Studies

Agne Kazakauskaite, an MSc Digital Currencies graduate from UNIC, became interested in blockchain technology in 2016, after discovering that it’s a novel technology enabling data to be sent peer-to-peer that avoids intermediaries by tapping into data that is stored on a distributed ledger.

“At that time, I thought that this technology would transform entire industries and business lines,”
Agne stated.

Her search for education materials and courses began, and she discovered the University of Nicosia’s MSc program:

“I must say, that I was always very studious and keen to learn things, always wanted to attend top educational institutions, do the courses, skill myself and satisfy my curiosity.

I had also been taking online Python programming courses while I was studying MSc. Although I regret not having taken Solidity, I felt that Python was more appropriate, given my financial background and passion. So studying another degree was a passion for me.”
David Stancel is another UNIC alumni. He shared how he discovered the MSc Program in Digital Currency and became intrigued. He immediately knew it would be a no-brainer when he discovered it was far away.

“It was great to get a structured view on the whole topic of digital currencies as it helped me to organize my knowledge that I had acquired prior to the Master’s degree. There were some amazing courses on the technical side of Bitcoin and smart contract platforms. I know there were some recent courses about DeFi which were very relevant and fascinating. I wish I could do those now,”
David said.

Agne stated that her courses recommended readings were extremely interesting. The Tower of Basel is one book she recommends highly from her reading list. Writing papers about the subject encouraged students to be critical and think from different perspectives, she said. She discussed one assignment, which was to write two persuasive essays: one that argued the stance that “Bitcoin is money,” and the other on the stance that “Bitcoin is not money”:

“The professors gave us vast, credible, interesting sources of information to form our opinions about the economy, monetary systems, and then research into digital currencies.”

There are many job opportunities after graduation

Agne has been able to move forward with a degree in cryptography. She also gained a clear vision about the direction of the digital economy.

“Right now, I am focused on DeFi; this is really exciting. DeGate DAO is my Lead Evangelist. It’s a Layer2 decentralized trading protocol that uses zero-knowledge technology. DAOs inspire me and are very important to me. I think it brings a totally different view of how we create value.”
David is the CTO of Fumbi, which is a crypto brokerage company. The degree helped him in his professional life, he acknowledged.

“The University of Nicosia has a great reputation in the area of digital currencies and it definitely opened some doors for me. A lot of my classmates were also interesting and work in interesting companies, so this alone was a big benefit.

Regarding the knowledge itself, I knew a lot of things about crypto before I got into my Master’s degree, but still, I find it valuable as it helped me to zoom out and make a more systematic overview of all the areas within crypto.”

To The Flipside

• Blockchain and cryptocurrency still cause confusion, and the industry’s future value remains to be seen.

What are the reasons to care?

The power of cryptocurrency knowledge is an asset that will open doors to many opportunities and give you a great career. The use of blockchain is expanding to many areas, such as finance, law, entertainment and healthcare.

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