Crypto courses have become such a big deal in the business school world mostly due to the rise of cryptocurrencies themselves. A few years ago, it seemed less worthy for business schools to teach their students about bitcoin or other electronic currencies that secured through online databases. Business schools did not take them seriously and so teaching them was taught of as faddish.
For a long time, there was great skepticism on cryptocurrencies. Today, it is much more common to hear cryptocurrency as something that is becoming almost a crucial part of business education. This is the same thing that happened with blockchain technology; decentralized databases cryptocurrencies rely on to verify and process transactions with no human involvement. Over the next few years, studying blockchain technology will become part of core business education.
Business schools that have decided to teach the subject earlier than others, may be benefitting from being way ahead of the crypto curve, just like it paid off for many people to be earlier investors in bitcoin. While it is mostly true that especially younger students are pushing for this kind of education, it is also true that they were also reluctant to ask for the courses especially if they went to Ivy schools.
Another aspect of business education that played a huge role in the rise of cryptocurrency is the role and reason behind applying an MBA program itself. The function of an MBA education is to help graduates find work. Business schools want to make sure they are teaching business courses that are mostly applicable for job opportunities post graduation, and that it could provide a learning value that could be taken very seriously in any job they take. MBA programs, especially top tier business schools can’t downplay and ignore something that is becoming a major source of revenues and employment. Cryptocurrency is valued at around 2 trillions now, and so it is only logical that there are plenty of job opportunities there.
If Cryptocurrecy ends up truly changing the world and the financial sector, it will be partly if not mostly because of the students the researchers who were convinced that it could.