San-Francisco based cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase has concluded a study which revealed that 42 percent of the world’s top 50 universities offer at least one class on digital currencies or blockchain.

The cryptocurrency exchange published the results of its findings on its official blog on Tuesday, August 28.

Math and science-focused courses

Coinbase reviewed course catalogs of the top 50 universities as ranked by US News Best Global Universities Rankings. The findings revealed that 21 of the top 50 schools offered a course on either blockchain or crypto.

The study further revealed that blockchain- and crypto-related courses are most popular in the United States. A total of 18 universities were reviewed outside the U.S and only five of them offer at least one class on these topics.

Stanford and Cornell University have the highest number of blockchain-related courses, with 10 and 9 respectively. Following those two are the University of Pennsylvania and the National University of Singapore who offers 6 and 5 blockchain-related courses respectively.

Lastly, the courses were mostly hosted by math and science faculties followed by business and science. This can imply that crypto and blockchain is being taught in a practical way for a real-life application to engineers and scientists.

Strong demand from students

Dawn Song, a computer science professor at Berkeley stated that she has to reject close to 200 students from her “Blockchain, Cryptoeconomics, and the Future of Technology, Business and Law”, which can only host 70 students.

She explained that blockchain is a combination of both theory and practice and has what it takes to cause fundamental breakthroughs in many research areas. She believes that blockchain can have profound and broad-scale impacts on society in several industries.

Computer science and engineering majors have also indicated an interest in learning about the blockchain technology. The Coinbase study revealed that 34 percent of them have shown interest in learning about the nascent technology

Bill Maurer, the dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of California Irvine, talked about the enthusiasm amongst social science majors. He believes that learning about financial systems prepares students in all programs for the job market today.

More findings from a small study

The research was conducted by Coinbase in partnership with survey company Qriously. The data obtained came after they interviewed 675 U.S. college students.

18% of US students now own cryptocurrency

Coinbase conducted another research which shows that 18% of students in U.S universities own cryptocurrencies.

The surge in education surrounding the technology has to do with the demand of the broader job market.

26% OF US students want to take a crypto course

Benedikt Bunz, a doctoral student at Stanford, who spoke to Coinbase about the survey results, commented that experts in crypto and blockchain have an easy time finding jobs after graduation since such skills are in high demand.

Dan Boneh, a computer science professor at Stanford, believes that given the high quality of students that are showing an inclination towards the field will lead, something groundbreaking will emerge over the next few years.

The crypto and blockchain interest isn’t only restricted to the U.S. Earlier this month, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School had received a $20 million blockchain research grant.

At the start of the month, Turkey also established its first university-level blockchain research center as it looks to encourage wide deployment of the technology.