Bitcoin Education Institute

Calling all faculty and PhD candidates – if you teach and/or research Bitcoin, we want to hear from you.

BEI is proud to announce our First Annual Conference, which will be held at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, on July 31, 2026. The Conference is by academics, for academics.

We’re offering honoraria for selected speakers:

💰 $3,000 – Teaching Talk
💰 $1,500 – Research Talk
💰 $500 – Grad Student Poster Session

The only rule? The topic must be specific to Bitcoin – nothing that addresses crypto or blockchain in a general sense. We're reviewing applications are on a rolling basis.

Apply here:
🔗 Teaching Talk: tinyurl.com/57xxrx6b
🔗 Research Talk: tinyurl.com/e4rh6pws
🔗 Poster Session: tinyurl.com/33crj98c

And if you're interested in simply, register for free here: tinyurl.com/h42awjyy

See you in DC! ⚡️ #Bitcoin #BEI #HigherEd

Every monetary system makes choices about who can issue money, hold it, and transfer it.

Bitcoin makes a different set of choices available to study.

Education should help students trace those choices to their consequences for individuals, businesses, and society.

Bitcoin education has a practical test: can someone explain their choices to a person they trust?

Why this wallet? Why this backup? Who can authorize a payment?

Clear answers turn unfamiliar technology into responsibilities people can understand.

“Digital gold” is a useful comparison. It is not a guarantee that Bitcoin behaves like gold.

Researchers compared their daily returns around COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine war. Gold’s statistical patterns were comparatively stable, while Bitcoin’s changed more across crisis periods, with extreme moves that a standard bell curve struggles to capture.

The lesson: understanding an asset means studying how it behaves under stress, beyond the name we give it. Research by Priyanka Nagar, Luca A. Gabin and Keotshepile Mandona of Stellenbosch University.

See the full paper here:
doi.org/10.1007/s42519…

Students will encounter claims about Bitcoin long before they encounter a course on it.

Education should give them enough understanding to recognize a sound argument, challenge a weak one, and know when they need more evidence.

That is a responsibility worth taking seriously.