Universities and colleges are opening up to the idea of taking donations via cryptocurrency…by Manoj Sharma for CNR

Earlier this week, Bloomberg highlighted the fact that the use of cryptocurrencies was broadening yet further. And that they were finding fresh use in the academic space.

The finance outlet recently reported that colleges and universities across the globe were getting a lot of requests for cryptocurrency dominated donations, mainly from alumni who are looking to share their appreciation through their success via cryptocurrencies. Bloomberg shares an example of the University of Puget Sound, which received a donation of 14.5 Bitcoins in 2014 from one of the graduates looking to spread some of his newly acquired crypto wealth as gratitude towards his alma mater.

The man behind the donation, Nicolas Cary, shared his experience of having to go to lengths to convince the school to accept his donation.

“I had to do a little bit of convincing for them to accept it. They wanted to dig in about how it works and what the process would be. We had a lot of conversations.’’

Bloomberg writes that while digital currencies constitute a $200 billion dollar industry that has primarily accumulated in the hands of young crypto proponents, many top-rated colleges have yet to accept a single donation in cryptocurrency. For example, Harvard, despite having the world’s largest university endowment, has yet not accepted any coins that way.

On the other hand, institutions like Yale are in the process of experimenting with crypto donations. Bloomberg reported last week that Yale is planning to invest $400 million cryptocurrency fund, but the college has yet to completely implement a method for accepting Bitcoins.

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