Not to be outdone by Stanford, MIT Media Lab has announced its own course to inspire the "next generation" of bitcoin talent.

Thanks to a partnership between its Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) and Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, MIT will join other universities, including Stanford, putting bitcoin into the classroom.

The Massachusetts university has been a hive of extra-curricular bitcoin activity with contests and events including the MIT Bitcoin Project's $500,000 giveaway in the currency – $100 for every student on campus.

Arriving next semester, the course is open to all students at MIT and those cross-registered from institutions around the Boston area.

David Shrier, a lecturer at the Media Lab and one of the brains behind the programme, said the course will study topics ranging from e-commerce to market systems.

He added:

It will be lead by serial entrepreneur and famed computer scientist Alex 'Sandy' Pentland alongside DCI director Brian Forde – an ex-White House advisor hoping to "mainstream" blockchain technology.

MIT Media Lab, which now supports several bitcoin core developers, will also be offering a "highly technical" course around coding the blockchain, Shrier said.

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