Bitcoin has moved from the margins of technology discussion into university classrooms, corporate strategy meetings, and academic conferences around the world. At the inaugural Bitcoin Education Institute (BEI) conference in Washington, D.C., Dr. Peter Schmidt of RIT Croatia joined educators and researchers to address a question higher education can no longer ignore: how should universities teach Bitcoin?
For Dr. Schmidt, who has taught his Bitcoin seminar at RIT Croatia through nine iterations, the answer begins with a subject far older than any digital asset: money itself. His session, “Orange-Pilling the Curriculum: Lessons from Teaching Bitcoin as Money,” offered attendees a practical framework for presenting Bitcoin not as a speculative investment, but as a fundamentally different way of organizing a monetary system.
If you are weighing a degree that connects business, technology, and emerging financial systems, explore the undergraduate programs at RIT Croatia to see where these conversations happen in the classroom.
Why Bitcoin Education Extends Beyond Finance
Public debate about Bitcoin usually starts and ends with price. Dr. Schmidt’s experience in the classroom suggests that this framing misses the point. Bitcoin, he argues, is a subject that reaches far beyond finance, with connections to technology, economics, business, and society at large. Those connections make it an increasingly relevant topic for students who want to understand the systems that shape both their professional and everyday lives.
Teaching Bitcoin as money, rather than as a trading asset, gives students tools they can apply regardless of where their careers lead. A marketing graduate, a software developer, and a financial analyst all interact with money daily, yet few ever examine how monetary systems work or why they take the form they do. A course that starts with that examination fills a gap that traditional business education often leaves open.
An Interdisciplinary Gathering of Bitcoin Educators
The BEI conference brought together experts from a wide range of fields, including economics, finance, business, mathematics, computer science, law, and engineering. This mix reflects the interdisciplinary nature of Bitcoin itself: understanding it requires ideas from monetary theory, cryptography, network engineering, regulation, and more.
For Dr. Schmidt, one of the most valuable takeaways was seeing how educators from different disciplines approach the same subject. “It was the width of perspectives on the topic,” he noted, adding that several of these approaches will enrich his own teaching and research in the future.
This kind of exchange matters for students as well. When faculty participate in international conferences and bring those insights back to campus, course content stays current with a fast-moving field. Anyone researching where to study Bitcoin and digital finance should look closely at how active a university’s faculty are in these professional communities. To learn more about the academic activity behind this teaching, visit the RIT Croatia research overview.
Start With Money, Not Bitcoin: A Teaching Framework That Works
The core of Dr. Schmidt’s conference presentation drew on nine iterations of his seminar, a process that has allowed him to test and refine his approach with successive groups of students. The method does not begin with Bitcoin at all. It begins with a more fundamental question: what is money, and what role does it play in society?
Question the Purpose of Money First
“The key ideas that I have developed are that students need to understand the purpose of money in social interaction,” Dr. Schmidt explains. Before students can evaluate any monetary system, they need to see money as a social technology: a tool societies use to coordinate exchange, store value, and measure economic activity.
From that foundation, students examine today’s fiat monetary system. They study how currencies such as the dollar and the euro are created, managed, and used. This step matters because, as Dr. Schmidt points out, many students complete degrees in business and finance without ever questioning the foundation of it all: measuring value in dollars or euros. The seminar asks them to make those assumptions explicit and test them.
Bitcoin as Monetary Accounting Without Middlemen
Only after establishing this baseline does the course turn to Bitcoin as a fundamentally different monetary system. A central part of the seminar helps students understand the technology behind this alternative. They explore Bitcoin as a system of monetary accounting that, in Dr. Schmidt’s words, “cannot be controlled by anyone, yet is available to everyone, without any middlemen.”
That description captures why the subject demands genuine intellectual effort. Understanding these differences requires students to challenge assumptions about money that are deeply ingrained in everyday life. Students who work through the material come away with more than knowledge of a single technology; they gain a framework for comparing monetary systems on their merits.
Preparing Business Students for an Economy Where Bitcoin Appears
The practical case for this education keeps getting stronger. Dr. Schmidt expects demand for Bitcoin-related knowledge and skills to grow as the technology finds its way into more areas of business. “Bitcoin will pop up more and more often everywhere in business life,” he says. “Handling Bitcoin in business use cases will require a deep, competent understanding of the underlying technology, because Bitcoin puts a strong emphasis on individual responsibility.”
That point deserves attention from anyone planning a career in business or technology. Payment operations, treasury management, accounting, compliance, and software development all intersect with digital assets in ways that were rare a decade ago. Graduates who understand both the monetary theory and the technical foundations hold a clear advantage.
This is also where program choice matters. Students in a Global Business Management program encounter these questions through the lens of international finance and strategy, while those in computing and cybersecurity programs engage with the protocol design and security model behind it. Dr. Schmidt’s presentation underscores that both perspectives are necessary, and that universities serving business and technology students should treat Bitcoin literacy as a serious academic subject.
The Case for Teaching Money in High School
Beyond the professional perspective, Dr. Schmidt believes understanding money is important for everyone. “This should be taught at the high school level to everyone, not just to economics and business students,” he says.
The argument is straightforward: monetary decisions affect every household. Saving, borrowing, pricing, and planning all depend on how money functions, yet most people complete their formal education without a single lesson on what money is or how monetary systems differ. A curriculum that introduces these ideas earlier would produce adults better equipped to evaluate financial products, public policy debates, and, increasingly, digital assets.
What Other Educators Can Take From This Approach
For instructors and curriculum designers, Dr. Schmidt’s session at the BEI conference offers several transferable lessons:
- Teach the foundation before the application. Students grasp Bitcoin more fully when they first understand what money does in society. Starting with the technology or the price invites confusion and speculation.
- Make hidden assumptions visible. Asking students to explain why a euro is worth what it is, or who controls the money supply, turns a familiar subject into a genuine inquiry.
- Use the interdisciplinary nature of the topic. Bitcoin connects economics, computer science, law, and history. Courses that draw on multiple fields keep students with different strengths engaged.
- Iterate. Nine versions of a seminar produce a course shaped by real classroom feedback rather than a first draft. Faculty teaching emerging topics benefit from treating every term as a revision cycle.
Study Where These Questions Are Taken Seriously
Faculty who present at international conferences, refine their courses across years of iteration, and engage with a global community of researchers provide something difficult to measure but easy to recognize in the classroom: current, tested, and intellectually honest instruction. Students evaluating universities for business, computing, or cybersecurity studies should ask how often faculty engage at this level.
At RIT Croatia, prospective students can experience this environment directly. The Student for a Day program invites applicants to sit in on real classes, meet faculty, and see how topics like Bitcoin, monetary systems, and digital technology are taught before they enroll.
Conclusion: Bitcoin as an Academic Subject Is Here to Stay
The inaugural Bitcoin Education Institute conference signals a shift. Bitcoin is no longer only a market phenomenon; it is a subject of sustained academic study, with dedicated educators building courses, sharing methods, and debating the best ways to teach it. Dr. Peter Schmidt’s contribution shows what serious Bitcoin education looks like: start with money, question assumptions, understand the technology, and connect it all to the systems students will work within.
For students, the message is equally clear. The business environment of the next decade will include Bitcoin and similar technologies, and the professionals who understand them will be the ones prepared to lead. Have questions about studying business, technology, or cybersecurity at RIT Croatia? Submit an inquiry to the admissions team to take the next step, or share your own perspective on Bitcoin education in the comments below.
