The largest institution of higher learning in Western Australia, Curtin University, has launched a crypto PhD Scholarship Fund that will accept donations entirely in Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrencies. The PhD program is targeting students interested in pursuing blockchain technology and other computer science subsets.
Going by the words of Curtin University’s Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Excellence, Prof. Garry Allison, the initiative is targeting the newly minted rich in the cryptocurrency sector:
By establishing the Cryptocurrency PhD Scholarship Fund, Curtin will provide the opportunity for entrepreneurs who have realized significant benefits from cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum to give something back to these communities.
A little over a decade ago the crypto market was worth zero but now boasts a market cap of nearly $300 billion (over $AUD400 billion). The most generous of these donors will even get to choose the field of specialty that the Cryptocurrency PhD Scholarship Fund will sponsor.
In order to allow crypto donors to make ‘real-time, peer-to-peer payments on both Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains’, Curtin University has partnered with blockchain firm Centrality and payments services firm Nelnet International. The Cryptocurrency PhD Scholarship Fund was designed by Curtin’s own data scientists.
If and when the donations start rolling in, Curtin University will not be the first institution to be the beneficiary of donations from the crypto sector. In April this year, Ripple co-founder, Chris Larsen, donated XRP worth $25 million to California’s San Francisco State University.
Last year, Ripple gave $50 million to 17 top universities spread across the world last year with a view of boosting the growth and development of blockchain technology. This was under an effort known as the Blockchain Research Initiative (UBI). Ripple’s donation was, however, in U.S. dollars not in cryptocurrency.