Cryptocurrency Classes Are Coming To Campus (nytimes.com)

While the price of Bitcoin has dropped since Christmas, the virtual currency boom has shown no signs of cooling off in the more august precincts of America's elite universities. The New York Times: Several top schools have added or are rushing to add classes about Bitcoin and the record-keeping technology that it introduced, known as the blockchain. Graduate-level classes this semester at Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Duke, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland, among other places, illustrate the fascination with the technology across several academic fields, and the assumption that it will outlast the current speculative price bubble. "There was some gentle ribbing from my colleagues when I began giving talks on Bitcoin," said David Yermack, a business and law professor at New York University who offered one of the first for-credit courses on the topic back in 2014. "But within a few months, I was being invited to Basel to talk with central bankers, and the joking from my colleagues stopped after that." For a class this semester, Mr. Yermack originally booked a lecture hall that could fit 180 students, but he had to move the course to the largest lecture hall at N.Y.U. when enrollment kept going up. He now has 225 people signed up for the class.

Comments

Classes?

[rmdingler]

It seems likely on the order of tomorrow's sunrise that educating the public about the Bitcoin would certainly not lead to more folks purchasing it.

Re:Classes?

[hambone142]

The prices fluctuate too wildly for it to be any form of useful investment.

It resembles a pyramid scheme.

Re: Classes?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a ponzi scheme in that current owners (you) lure people into buying it with the promise of returns (like you did above). You cash out to lock in your profit before the pyramid collapses, and cheerlead it up to that point. I assume you haven't fully cashed out yet.

It's not "like a pyramid scheme"... It literally is exactly a pyramid scheme.

Re:Classes?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

It seems likely on the order of tomorrow's sunrise that educating the public about the Bitcoin would certainly not lead to more folks purchasing it.

Even if they are educated, folks still will speculate in Bitcoins anyway. It's like gambling, alcohol, tobacco and opiates. People like to mess with stuff that they know is bad for them.

I can understand why there is high interest in Blockchain among students. Even if it is riddled with scams right now, Blockchain skills are good to have when applying for your first job. That and Automation and AI.

Bitcoin is going to run its course, and a lot of folks are going to make a lot of money from idiots during that run. Hell, even Beanie Babies made money for folks . . . for a while.

Re:Classes?

[Hal_Porter]

Pyramid schemes expand, and then collapse entirely.

Bitcoin has expanded and shrunk by large percentages around a dozen times so far, and each time, it comes back stronger than before.

Not the behavior of a pyramid scheme.

This sure looks like a pyramid scheme that grew exponentially until around 18th December 2018 and has fallen ever since then.

https://coinmarketcap.com/curr...
https://i.imgur.com/tIRjZll.pn...

Re:Classes?

[Hognoxious]

Its spec says up to 18,000,000 (18 million units) can be added per year. This means the value of ETH can dilute itself by a factor of 18 million every 12 months.

No. It means that by the end of the year it can dilute by a factor of 1 + ( 18e6 / X ), where X is how many there were at the start of the year.

18 million in yr 1, add another 18M = 36M - factor of 2. Ding dong, Auld Lang Syne, add another 18M, 54M - factor of 1.333' and so on.

Re:Classes?

[slashrio]

Yes, you are totally right, alright?
Now, listen to what your dad said: don't get involved in a pyramid scheme.
So don't buy any of it.
And now get off my lawn, will you?

Re: Classes?

[dcw3]

People do the same shit with stocks and all sorts of other shit.

The big difference between them is that "stocks and all sorts of other shit" are regulated, and cryptocurrencies...well, not so much...yet.

Re: Classes?

[Bloke down the pub]

I *think* he's talking about merchant fees. I saw "working toward accepting" and something about having a business somewhere in that rambling rant.

Re: Classes?

[plopez]

Stock et. al. are to be bought for dividends and interest. Otherwise it is sheer speculation. The difference is that dividends et. al. are tied to reality specifically company sales and the credit worthiness of an organization which is tied to revenue. Crypto-currency does none of this. It is sheer speculation.

Re:Classes?

[plopez]

not just a as an investment but also a currency. currencies must be stable to be useful.

Re: Classes?

[pak9rabid]

People do the same shit with stocks and all sorts of other shit.

You mean like Bernie Madoff? Yeah, that worked out real well for him.

tripe

[Anonymous Coward]

For a class this semester, Mr. Yermack originally booked a lecture hall that could fit 180 students, but he had to move the course to the largest lecture hall at N.Y.U. when enrollment kept going up. He now has 225 people signed up for the class.

HOLY SHIT! BUY NOW!

Re: tripe

[Hognoxious]

Why would that preclude using it as teaching material, assuming it's a class on theory and not a code monkey program-by-numbers class like you did at DeVry?

Re: tripe

[Bloke down the pub]

You could argue that having faults makes it better for teaching. Like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Comet Airliner, Isandlwana...

Demand

[93 Escort Wagon]

For a class this semester, Mr. Yermack originally booked a lecture hall that could fit 180 students, but he had to move the course to the largest lecture hall at N.Y.U. when enrollment kept going up. He now has 225 people signed up for the class.

If only there were some means by which colleges could limit the number of students allowed to sign up for a particular course offering... perhaps, someday, they'll come up with one.

Re:Demand

[Nkwe]

For a class this semester, Mr. Yermack originally booked a lecture hall that could fit 180 students, but he had to move the course to the largest lecture hall at N.Y.U. when enrollment kept going up. He now has 225 people signed up for the class.

If only there were some means by which colleges could limit the number of students allowed to sign up for a particular course offering... perhaps, someday, they'll come up with one.

Well you could obtain a network of computers and have them all race to solve a mathematical problem, those computers that win the race would be rewarded a seat in the lecture hall. To make sure that the process was transparent, every computer should have a copy of the ledger containing what seats were assigned. You would have to use strong cryptography to ensure that nobody cheated. Since people might want to trade or sell their seats, the ledger would allow transfers of seats from one holder to another. To ensure that a limited number of seats were assigned you would want to have the algorithms stop assigning seats when the limit was hit. As an incentive to continue processing the seat ledger after all the seats are assigned, the system should allow people to offer a transaction incentive to sell a seat...

Re:Demand

[LynnwoodRooster]

I have an idea! What if everyone had a unique number, and they kept it secret, in something we can call a wallet. Then when they want to go to a class, they can add their number to a list of other numbers signing up for that class, and it will be hashed so that everyone can verify that they were added, but because it's done with secret unique identifiers it won't really be public, but kind of anonymous! Then groups of classes - we'd call them "blocks" - could be strung together for your entire scholastic career, like a "chain". I call it "BlockClassChain". And we can fund your education with special money that is pegged to this BlockClassChain, so it would be BlockClassChainCoin!

Re:Demand

[Hognoxious]

I take it that if you manage to enrol, you've automatically passed?

A bit like underwater Klingon dance studies.

Re:Demand

[Hognoxious]

And when a $Minority tries to sign up and the class is full ...?

Correction:

[stephenmac7]

The class at Carnegie Mellon is actually at the undergraduate level.

not sure what can be learned about crypto in class

[js290]

This is the discussion in Antifragile about "academic" discoveries that were in fact made by practitioners. pic.twitter.com/xiLZdPOkzi

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) November 28, 2017

Re:Donald Trump will teach illiteracy in prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama would literally wipe the floor intellectually and physically with any Republican contender. He fucking owns you bitches and you know it.

That's why you really hate him. The black man made you look like inbred retarded yokels who turn out to be frauds, actual traitors, as you die in prison.

Enjoy bitch. You earned it.

Re: The first class will be called:

[Anonymous Coward]

You racist hater! Black Coins Matter!

If you're not woke to intersectional coinism you're not woke!

Watch Andreas Antonopoulos

[psnyder]

If you really want to understand this topic, start by watching Andreas Antonopoulos, a computer scientist who specializes in Data Communications and Distributed Systems. If you care to go further, he has 2 books Mastering Bitcoin (very technical), and The Internet of Money (for the layman).

I would recommend starting with Blockchain vs. Bitcoin in front of Consultants. You can watch his videos on x2 speed because he enunciates well.

Don't believe anything in the Slashdot comments. On every article about Bitcoin / Crypto, so many comments are factually inaccurate, even when they sound intelligent, plausible, and are modded +5. In the words of Andreas, "(Bitcoin) isn't what it appears to be at first glance."

Finally, Princeton has a series of free lectures here: Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

Re:Watch Andreas Antonopoulos

[Mr307]

Nothing special to understand.

Do you want a database with built in 'proof' of integrity (with some generally exploitable caveats), then you can attempt to make blockchain work within its current limitations.

But so far I dont see the point and it appears to have significant problems scaling amongst other glaring problems, 51% attack, or if the database does have a central record like many do for speed and convenience then many of those are just plain stolen or hacked and who cares what the blockchain says.

The most interesting use for blockchain that I have seen so far is 1 time records of voting, which seemed workable but challenging if there are not good public records of who can vote. I'm sure there are other possibilities as well.

If we are just talking about cryptocurrencies:
The best description of cryptocurrency at this time is a greater fool bubble.
The most charitable view of cryptocurrency at this time is unregulated gambling.

Re:Watch Andreas Antonopoulos

[psnyder]

4 talks from Andreas that directly address your concerns.

Scaling
Delivering Liberty, at Scale

Blockchain
Blockchain vs. Bullshit: Thoughts on the Future of Money. Too long? Watch a few minutes starting 6 or 7min in.

51% Attack
Andreas Antonopoulos - 51% Bitcoin Attack from 2015. Short clip from a longer talk. You may have to look more into the ASIC miner distribution, and mining rewards to understand this clip.

Fool Bubble
Investing in Education Instead of Speculation

Thank you for posting the exact type of comment I was writing about. You may be completely sincere, and the concerns may be intelligently thought out, based on the information you've been given. But the premises you are starting from are factually inaccurate. Bitcoin is not what it appears to be at first glance.

Re:Watch Andreas Antonopoulos

[psnyder]

Andreas also put his Mastering Bitcoin book on GitHub for free.

Re:Watch Andreas Antonopoulos

[Mr307]

Most things can be explained very simply, this guy takes forever to say simple things, sounds more like a salesperson than a tech talk, I dont find him very convincing on that basis alone but whatever, to your points.

1. Takes him 10 minutes to say increase the blocksize and another 14 minutes to say Lightning network or sidechain.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Blo...
Sidechains are divorced from the block so require other layers of trust and are therefore not blockchain.

2. complete waste of my time, was a sales pitch more than anything.

3. 51% attack is completely possible, in 2 cases especially.
        a. The network has fallen out of favor and everyone has moved on to the new bestest coin ever, and the only people left on the old garbage coin for slow people are just hacking it to get whatever 'value' they think they can steal and its trivial to have enough processing power.
        b. New super good coin is 'worth' a bajillion megabucks and now its trivial to spend 1 billion dollars to do an attack.

https://blockchain.info/pools
Only 3 of the top 4 pools need to conspire to further their own self interest, less than that is necessary for shorter term control of the network, even if they are able to disrupt the network for their own purposes with 30% of the hash rate.

One of the biggest failures of new technology, especially when advocates are vociferously certain that its so perfect and cannot fail is a lack of imagination, this has taken down the most secure certain absolutely guaranteed 'things' time and time again. Someone will find a hole and take advantage of it over and over in ways not originally even considered.

Maybe there is a simply a spam attack possible that delays all transactions for many hours or days.
Maybe there is a trust attack where proof appears from multiple sources.
When does a classic man in the middle attack become 'worth it', impersonate the work originator.
Who knows.

Thats if its not regulated out of use by governments in short order anyways.

4. was a sales pitch again.

In practice Bitcoin is a complete failure, too expensive, too slow, doesn't scale, too much risk, not convenient.
Blockchain may be interesting but V2.0 looks useless so far. No reason it can't be looked at some more but my original descriptions stand from where I sit.

Re:Watch Andreas Antonopoulos

[psnyder]

Most things can be explained very simply

"For every complex problem there is a simple solution that is wrong."

If you can handle the technical side:

• The original whitepaper that started it
• Mastering Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Source Code

That's all you need.



To address your other points:

Sidechains are divorced from the block so require other layers of trust and are therefore not blockchain.

You're absolutely right. Blockchain was only one of the inventions in the whitepaper. The system doesn't work with it alone. And if you can replace the buzzword "blockchain" with "database" in an application, it's not interesting and adds little to no value.

51% attack is completely possible, in 2 cases especially. ...

Right again. Bitcoin may not be what fintech applications are written on in ten years. But it will be a cryptocurrency that is trust-less, fungible, censorship resistant, immutable, peer to peer, and open. Bitcoin introduced decentralized security through computation that can operate in highly hostile environments. It is currently the most "anti-fragile" cryptocurrency because of size, but another may take its place.

Only 3 of the top 4 pools need to conspire to further their own self interest

This attack has been tried and will be tried again. It's a long story, but the current result is a fork called "Bitcoin Cash". So far it hasn't gained the same traction as the original "Bitcoin".

even if they are able to disrupt the network for their own purposes with 30% of the hash rate

Has most likely been tried very recently. Many suspect that spam transactions that drove transaction rates up for many weeks were exactly this. Transaction rates are lower again. These attacks are very expensive to continue. They require an immense amount of electricity.

Maybe there is a simply a spam attack possible that delays all transactions for many hours or days.

same as above

Maybe there is a trust attack where proof appears from multiple sources.

You mean a Sybil attack. Currently highly unlikely based on how the code works. Read through the source code.

When does a classic man in the middle attack become 'worth it', impersonate the work originator.

If you're talking about the network, it doesn't. With the amount of electrical power required, it's always much more profitable to simply mine bitcoin.

If you're talking about individuals, many are doing this right now and draining people's wallets. It's one user at a time. It does not affect the whole network. Crypto allows the user to be their own bank. This carries significant risks at the moment. I wouldn't recommend it to the masses yet.

if its not regulated out of use by governments in short order anyways

Some governments can make it go underground (like in Venezuela). But it's impossible to stop (like in Venezuela). Unless you destroy every computer on the planet that runs a full bitcoin wallet.


I encourage you to be skeptical. Be highly skeptical. If you dig into it, you'll see that your ideas on compromising this system are not new. You'll find a multitude of other attacks that have been accounted for as well. Bitcoin has been under attack since day 1.

Interest or Greed?

[bloodhawk]

wonder how many enrolled are actually genuinely interested in block chain as opposed to those looking to see if it isn't too late for them to get rich quick too.

Re:Interest or Greed?

[GuB-42]

It may be some kind of bait for a cryptography class.
If it can get some students to get interested in maths, it is not a bad thing.

Re:Bitcoin is Useless as Money for US Citizens

[AHuxley]

Tax reporting and banks are waiting for the transactions.

Re:The first class will be called:

[Hognoxious]

Terrestrialist! What about the dolphins?

#cetaceanlivesmatter

Re:Crypto concern

[Hognoxious]

All of those cases are against people who were either insiders or who assisted in some way.

A teeny bit more specific than "investors who sold out early". What law would the latter be prosecuted for breaking?

Bit too late?

[houghi]

Reminds me of a friend of mine who had a course about programming concerning the Y2K issue. That way it would be easy to get a job and already have a job. That is obviously a great idea, except for the minor detail that the end of the course was June 2000.

Re:Bit too late?

[Bloke down the pub]

Just getting ahead of the pack for Y20K.

Jump on every trendy thing!

[plopez]

Once again academia just on a fashionable trend. Why not merge CS with the design and style departments of a university? Trendy, so modern, so *you*! Until the next sexy teen comes along. After crypto-currencies die the people who jumped on the band wagon will wish they had real skills (not "skillz").