Best Universities for Blockchain 2022: Stanford University

The third-best college in the nation, according to the 2022-23 U.S. News & World report, Stanford has an undergraduate acceptance rate of just 4%. Sprawling over 8,180 acres in Palo Alto, the private university is well-known for its entrepreneurial alumni, such as Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who led the U.S. into the computer age. Now Stanford’s Center for Blockchain Research looks to contribute to those efforts by leading research in blockchain technology.

This piece is part of CoinDesk's Education Week

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Led by a faculty of eight, the center brings together students and postdocs across different departments, including engineering and law, to solve technical challenges related to cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. In addition to research, the center provides undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to explore topics like security in its Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain course and takes a look at what effects cryptography can have in real world systems through its course on Cryptography. The center’s third course, Scaling Blockchains, turns to the foundational aspects that make-up blockchain systems.

Student interest, including from the members of the Stanford Blockchain Club, encourages the university’s blockchain related efforts. The research center offers monthly blockchain seminars, some of which take a look at the Future of Digital Currency, and most recently it hosted its Science and Blockchain Blockchain Conference. In May, the Internet Observatory, a lab that is leading research on the effects of the internet, hosted a Cryptocurrency and Societal Harm symposium, where it led discussions related to crypto-related-crimes.

So far, the university has published 78 blockchain papers and has been cited over 1,326 times, according to data compiled by CoinDesk.

With a rise in blockchain and cryptocurrency use, the 136-year-old university aims to be a central figure in those research efforts. The university currently offers three certificates, including one that can be earned through the School of Engineering, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technologies.

While the school does not offer an undergraduate or graduate degree in cryptocurrency or blockchain, it does offer 15 classes in blockchain-related courses, five of which are taught by the engineering faculty, and four of which are by the law school.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business executive education program offers a certificate in financial technology that examines the way banks, senior executives and innovators, are shaping the financial ecosystem.