Lomond School becomes the first in the UK to accept Bitcoin for tuition and launch a curriculum in BTC and Austrian economics with Saifedean Ammous.
Lomond School, a private institution in Scotland, will begin accepting Bitcoin for tuition payments and is collaborating with Bitcoin author Saifedean Ammous to introduce a new curriculum focused on Bitcoin and Austrian economics.
“I'm going to be working with Lomond School to develop a curriculum for bitcoin and Austrian economics,” Ammous wrote in an April 12 X post, sharing his excitement for “making the material widely available worldwide.”
Lomond School Principal Claire Chisholm confirmed the collaboration on April 12, writing that she was “thrilled to be working with Dr. Ammous” and appreciative of the “positivity of the Bitcoin community.”
The news comes a day after Lomond School announced it would accept BTC for tuition payments starting from the autumn semester of 2025, becoming the first school in the United Kingdom to adopt BTC payments.
Ammous is best known for The Bitcoin Standard, which was first published in 2018. The book outlines the economic philosophy behind Bitcoin and contrasts it with fiat currency systems. It has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into 38 languages, according to Ammous.
Cointelegraph has contacted both Ammous and Lomond School for additional details regarding the upcoming curriculum.
Educational institutions around the world have increasingly embraced Bitcoin as both a subject of academic study and a financial tool.
Schools and universities have been launching Bitcoin-based courses since as early as 2013 when the University of Nicosia in Cyprus launched its Master’s in Digital Currency program, which is accessible both in-person and online.
New York University’s Stern School of Business launched “The Law and Business of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies” course in 2014 — one of the first Bitcoin-specific courses in the US.
Stanford University also launched its “Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies” course in 2015, focused on the technological and economic aspects of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
Three months before the University of Austin’s announcement, a regulatory filing revealed that Emory University accumulated over $15 million worth of Bitcoin via Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, Cointelegraph reported on Oct. 28.
A non-fungible token (NFT) trader could face up to six years in prison after pleading guilty to underreporting nearly $13 million in profits from trading CryptoPunks, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Waylon Wilcox, 45, admitted to filing false income tax returns for the 2021 and 2022 tax years. The former CryptoPunk investor pleaded guilty on April 9 to two counts of filing false individual income tax returns, federal prosecutors said in an April 11 press release.
Back in April 2022, Wilcox filed a false individual income tax return for the tax year 2021, which underreported his income tax by roughly $8.5 million and reduced his tax due by approximately $2.1 million.
In October 2023, Wilcox filed another false individual tax income return for the fiscal year of 2022, underreporting his income tax by an estimated $4.6 million and
Crypto tax laws attracted interest worldwide in June 2024 after the IRS issued a new crypto regulation making US crypto transactions subject to third-party tax reporting requirements for the first time.
Since January, centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs) and other brokers have been required to report the sales and exchanges of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies.
On April 10, US President Donald Trump signed a joint congressional resolution to overturn a Biden administration-era legislation that would have required decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to also report transactions to the IRS.
Set to take effect in 2027, the so-called IRS DeFi broker rule would have expanded the tax authority’s existing reporting requirements to include DeFi platforms, requiring them to disclose gross proceeds from crypto sales, including information regarding taxpayers involved in the transactions.
However, some crypto regulatory advisers believe that stablecoin and crypto banking legislation should be a priority above new tax legislation in the US.
Though decentralization is a core promise of blockchain technology, interacting with decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms can be a gruesome task for both novice and seasoned users. A confusing terminology accompanies the space, which may sound alien to less-experienced users. And the complexity of many DeFi interfaces adds even more trouble, bringing along the risk of costly mistakes.
As for experienced users, DeFi’s fragmented landscape creates inefficiencies that decrease portfolio visibility and slow down asset management. The need to constantly switch protocols and networks for different tasks, such as lending, farming, staking or trading, increases both time and transaction costs, which may result in suboptimal trades. Additionally, network congestion and high gas fees make interacting with DeFi less accessible, discouraging wider adoption.
Primex Finance is a DeFi platform that addresses widespread industry challenges with its new app - FrenDeFi. Its user-friendly design and simplified onboarding - through fiat on-ramps, social login, and gasless transactions - make it especially accessible for novice users. Already deployed on several networks, including Base, Arbitrum, Ethereum mainnet, and Polygon, and with an upcoming launch on the Monad testnet, Primex offers both new and experienced users a one-stop DeFi app to access a wide range of yield and portfolio automation opportunities through a single interface.
He highlighted that in 2024, the US and Western Europe saw CPW increase by four times and 27 times, respectively, between Q1 and Q3, as the markets continued to consolidate and interest from crypto wallet holders waned.
“While these markets provide scale and quality during bull runs, they become significantly more expensive when sentiment turns bearish, making them less sustainable during downturns,” Nadler said.
Meanwhile, emerging markets like Latin America and Eastern Europe “offer exceptionally low CPW in favorable conditions but can experience extreme cost volatility.”
US lawmakers and officials expect clear crypto policies to be established and signed into law sometime in 2025 with bipartisan support from Congress.
Speaking at the Digital Assets Summit in New York City, on March 18, Democrat Representative Ro Khanna said he expects both the market structure and stablecoin bills to pass this year.
The Democrat lawmaker added that there are about 70-80 other representatives in the party who understand the importance of passing clear digital asset regulations in the United States.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, pictured left, President Donald Trump in the center, and crypto czar David Sacks, pictured right, at the White House Crypto Summit. Source: The White House
Khanna emphasized that fellow Democrats support dollar-pegged stablecoins due to the role of dollar tokens in expanding demand for the US dollar worldwide through the internet.
Bo Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, also spoke at the conference and predicted that stablecoin legislation would be passed into law within 60 days.
Hines highlighted that establishing US dominance in the digital asset space is a goal with widespread bipartisan support in Washington DC.
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