Best Universities for Blockchain 2022: Cornell University
Cornell may only have one blockchain research center, but it is arguably the most prominent in the blockchain community. IC3, for Initiative for CryptoCurrency and Contracts, is headquartered at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in New York City. Formed by faculty members of eight of the world’s top universities, it aims to address “the blockchain community’s urgent need for world-class expertise in computer science.” Current research projects underway include enabling security and compliance in Going Incognito in the Metaverse, applying blockchain to societal problems in blockchains such as infrastructure and semicommons, and evaluating copyright vulnerabilities in NFTs.
|
2022 ranking |
Name of the university |
Total |
Course |
Region |
Regional |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
5 (up 12) |
Cornell University |
79 |
38 |
North America |
2 |
The Ivy League university also has “the Cornell Blockchain Club, one of the best in the world,” Nick Stamm, Cornell Blockchain’s president, wrote to CoinDesk. The club has a mission to develop “the next generation of blockchain leaders” and is well organized and comprehensive. The education team—students teaching other students—teach the CS 1998: Intro to Blockchain course, and are launching an Intro to Solidity class this spring.
The club’s events branch organized an annual blockchain conference with the participation of major players in the crypto industry. The conference last April included participation from Ava Labs, dYdX, Crypto.com, Chainanalysis, Nansen.ai and more.
Cornell has more blockchain and related courses, at 38, than any other university among the 240 surveyed for our list. The Blockchains, Cryptocurrencies, and Smart Contracts course is taught by Ari Juels, who was named an innovator under 35 by MIT Technology Review. The Ivy League university also offers an online certificate program to learn about the cryptographic foundations of blockchain technology.
Although Cornell does not have a blockchain-specific major, the Robert S. Harrison College Scholar Program allows students to “design their own interdisciplinary major, organized around a question of interest, and pursue a course of study that cannot be found in an established major.” Through program, students can tailor their major to focus on blockchain technology.
A significant number of alumni have gone on to work at top blockchain organizations, such as Binance, Coinbase and Consensys.
