A surge of young people has taken a headfirst dive into cryptocurrency. High school day traders have made hundred percent multiples on cash earned from summer jobs. College freshmen have exchanged doctoral dreams for computer science. Students have dropped out of school altogether. Some have embraced cryptocurrencies out of curiosity, others out of conviction, but all are banking that Bitcoin is the technology of the future. It’s early 1990s dot-com boom deja-vu.
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Crypto class the new cool thing on campus
NYU has doubled its crypto course offerings this year
Professor Andrew Hinkes was ready to begin teaching the class “Digital Currencies, Blockchains and the Future of the Financial Services Industry” promptly at 10:30 a.m. inside one of New York University Stern School of Business’s largest classrooms. It’s a packed house for the lecture, which is also livestreamed. “A lot of students view education in this area as pivotal to success in the job market,” Hinkes said. “It’s one of the hottest areas in law and business.” With little reverence to it’s speculative price, the number of undergraduate students across the country deciding to study cryptocurrency and blockchain is booming. A new study from Coinbase says that almost half (42…
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ICE heats up on crypto with Starbucks
NYSE’s owner launches crypto initiative with another household name
Last month, the owners of the New York Stock Exchange quietly bought a domain name for a made up word. The misspelled wordplay belongs to startup Bakkt—pronounced ‘backed’—which had been in the works for months. Bakkt introduced itself to the world Friday as a digital asset ecosystem hoping to make cryptocurrency mainstream for consumers and merchants. That’s the goal of many a crypto company, but this time it might be more than just talk. Bakkt will launch with an impressive global partner, Starbucks. “As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars…
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Blockchain strikes a chord with the music industry
eMusic latest to announce token, decentralized platform for artists to get tunes into headphones
Jared Bowser was brushing his teeth, about to leave for a concert, when he heard a knock at the front door. The 19-year-old still lived with his parents. His mother, the only other person home, answered the door and walked back to the bathroom. “Her voice was the crying, shaky kind,” Bowser said. “She asked me ‘Jared, why is the FBI at the door?’” Two agents dressed in black suits with leather bound portfolios sat at the kitchen table and asked about five songs by musician Ryan Adams they said Bowser shared on the internet. The songs had not yet been released, but Bowser had copies thanks to a friend…
