The Top Universities for Blockchain by CoinDesk 2021

CoinDesk’s rankings cover courses, research output, campus blockchain offerings (like student clubs and research centers), employment outcomes, academic reputation and cost.

Unmute

This year’s ranking rates 230 schools internationally, expanding the sample from just U.S. schools in our first university ranking last year.

Overall, the National University of Singapore is in first place as a result of its multiple blockchain research centers, its frequently hosted blockchain-themed conferences, its many blockchain clubs, its company partnerships and its masters program in digital financial technology.

Also representing Asia in the top 10 are Hong Kong Polytechnic, Tsinghua University and Chinese University of Hong Kong. RMIT in Melbourne comes second while representing Europe are the University of Zurich, UCL and ETH Zurich.

The top U.S schools are Berkeley (third) and MIT (fifth). Cornell, which was second last year, is now in 17th place. Stanford, which placed fourth in 2020, is now in 12th. Harvard, which was fifth last year, is now 49th, reflecting stronger competition this time, and that schools with strong overall reputations aren’t always the best performers when it comes to blockchain.

CoinDesk University Ranking
Ranking	School	Score
1	National University of Singapore	100.00
2	Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology	97.65
3	University of California Berkeley	93.26
4	University of Zurich	91.66
5	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	91.57
6	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	84.30
7	UCL	81.54
8	Tsinghua University	79.20
9	Chinese University of Hong Kong	75.30
10	ETH Zurich	75.04
11	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	74.98
12	Stanford University	68.41
13	UNSW Sydney	66.29
14	City University of Hong Kong	66.13
15	University of Oxford	65.47
16	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	65.18
17	Cornell University	63.98
18	Delft University of Technology	63.85
19	University of Hong Kong	61.97
20	University of Sydney	61.48
21	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland)	60.78
22	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	60.10
23	University of Cambridge	58.69
24	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	58.51
25	University of California Los Angeles	58.40
26	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology	57.87
27	Sun Yat-sen University	57.18
28	University of British Columbia	55.80
29	Peking University	54.15
30	Arizona State University	51.86
31	Technical University of Munich	51.78
32	University of Edinburgh	51.77
33	Carnegie Mellon University	51.10
34	University of Melbourne	50.95
35	Worcester Polytechnic Institute	50.77
36	Georgetown University	50.40
37	Fudan University	49.95
38	University of Southern California	49.57
39	Korea University	48.85
40	Imperial College London	48.59
41	New York University	48.55
42	Tokyo Institute of Technology	47.37
43	University of Warwick	47.19
44	Fordham University	46.89
45	Columbia University	46.46
46	Seoul National University	45.72
47	King Abdulaziz University	45.59
48	Monash University	44.05
49	Harvard University	43.89
50	Zhejiang University	43.37

More about Top Universities for Blockchain by CoinDesk

This is the second year CoinDesk has done these rankings. Last year we tracked 46 U.S. schools, and ranked the top 30. This year, we tracked 230 schools internationally.

Data is good. There is an absence of data on this space: Research and teaching can only get better if we track what academic institutions are offering.

We hope these rankings prompt the sharing of best practices in teaching and other campus offerings. We profile the top 30 schools here, and invite those and other schools to share with the world what they are doing. We want to hear from you.

Read more: Do You Need to Go to College to Get a Job in Crypto? \ David Z. Morris

Research was led by Reuben Youngblom, a researcher from Stanford and MIT, along with CoinDesk’s Joe Lautzenhiser. To assess the rankings, they scoured publicly available sources including course catalogues, program prospectuses, social media channels, club web page the Clarivate Web of Science, and devised an online survey where academics, students and stakeholders could rate the offerings at their schools and their competitors.

Mindful that the cost of university education varies wildly, this year we introduced a metric that compares the unsubsidized tuition costs against the average cost of living in the region in which the school is located.

Disclosure

Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated.

CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.