Top Blockchain University: Chinese University of Hong Kong

Even in a city packed with world-class blockchain education and research opportunities, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) stands up comfortably to its competition.

9
New Chinese University of Hong Kong Total Score
75.3 Regional Rank
5 Courses
4

CUHK offers an undergraduate degree program in financial technology, which includes an introductory course in distributed ledger technologies and looks at application examples like bitcoin. Other courses within the degree also touch on digital currencies, such as “Fintech Regulation and Legal Policy.”

Read More: The Top Universities for Blockchain by CoinDesk 2021

More sophisticated courses are offered, too, such as “Advanced Topics in Blockchain,” which is open to undergraduates and postgraduates. It covers smart contracts, possible attacks on the Bitcoin network and wider topics in cryptography.

Among CUHK’s leading academic staff in the field is Sherman S. M. Chow, who has worked extensively in cybersecurity and received a number of awards for his troubles. He serves on the editorial boards of journals, including ACM Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice, and was a lead guest-editor of another journal’s special issue on privacy issues in blockchain.

CUHK’s law faculty blog keeps its finger firmly on the blockchain pulse, too, and publishes content on blockchain legal questions. In 2021, blog posts included “Blockchain Initiatives for Tax Administration” and “Blockchain for SME Finance: Call for Empirical Testing.”

CUHK has sent alumni to work for crypto and blockchain startups across the city’s thriving industry. Employers of former students include: CryptoBLK, a startup that won Deloitte’s Hong Kong Rising Star award in 2019; Mantra Dao, a community-governed decentralized finance (DeFi) platform; and Crypto.com, a payments app that says it serves over 10 million customers worldwide.

The city of Hong Kong has an illustrious place in the brief history of blockchain and crypto. The largest stablecoin in the world, tether, was created in the city as well as the crypto derivatives exchange FTX Trading, to name just two. Hong Kong’s financial regulations have been relatively friendly to crypto as well. Students settling in the city might find opportunities aplenty on their doorstep.