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Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin at UATX: A New Era of Intellectual Sovereignty
UATX, The University of Austin, Texas, is rediscovering and redefining tutorial pursuit. Founded in 2021, the start-up college stands as a protest to the mental dogma and the “woke” radicalization of main universities in latest years, focusing instead on entrepreneurship and making ready college students for a technologically and culturally complicated future.
These previous values, rekindled by the chaos of modernity, have led UATX to Bitcoin: “The first principles of this institution share the same space, language, and ethos as the first principles behind Bitcoin: freedom of speech, freedom to transact, individual and institutional sovereignty, distributed decentralized governing structure,” Anthony J. Rosario, main items and bitcoin endowment officer at UATX, advised Bitcoin Magazine.
UATX has been making waves in latest weeks and months with a selection of Bitcoin-related bulletins, among them the publication of “The Satoshi Papers,” a e-book comprising a assortment of political, social, and financial essays debating the impression and nature of Bitcoin, echoing the Federalist Papers (popularized during the founding of the United States). They also introduced a bitcoin endowment fund, one of the first in the nation, and they boast a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency curriculum led by Dr. Thomas L. Hogan, which offers college students hands-on expertise with the expertise and business. So much so that Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, not too long ago tweeted he’ll be “recruiting new college grads from UATX,” including that, “It aligns well with our apolitical culture. Let’s hope we see more apolitical universities emerge over time.”
.@coinbase will be recruiting new faculty grads from UATX when they're prepared (hopefully some interns in the imply time)
It aligns effectively with our apolitical tradition. Let's hope we see more apolitical universities emerge over time, and a continued shift toward MEI. https://t.co/XZvhv2paI7— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) November 25, 2024
A Protest Against Cancel Culture and Intellectual Rigidity in Academia
“A lot of our faculty and staff came to UATX because they were tired of the intellectual rigidity and cancel culture at their previous institutions,” Maggie Kelly, chief development officer at UATX advised Bitcoin Magazine. She added that, “We’re really trying to create a place where people can come and think freely and explore ideas without fear of being canceled or silenced, which is a huge problem in academia today.”
UATX was based by journalist Bari Weiss, historian Niall Ferguson, enterprise capitalist Joe Lonsdale, at the time the president of St. John’s College, and Pano Kanelos, who had criticized the “illiberal” nature of conventional universities in fashionable occasions.
We received sick of complaining about how damaged greater training is. So we determined to do something about it.
Announcing a new college devoted to the fearless pursuit of reality: @uaustinorg:https://t.co/ZqRLXcF2n0— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) November 8, 2021
Kanelos, founding president and now chancellor of the University, put it greatest in a Free Press article in 2021, “Nearly a quarter of American academics in the social sciences or humanities endorse ousting a colleague for having a wrong opinion about hot-button issues such as immigration or gender differences.”
Citing a report by the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. Kalenos pointed out that “over a third of conservative academics and PhD students said they had been threatened with disciplinary action for their views and four out of five American PhD students are willing to discriminate against right-leaning scholars.”
Daring to assume otherwise and compelled to take on a start-up mindset, despite being a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the UATX has a robust focus on entrepreneurship, historical past, economics, and classical Western philosophical thought — highly effective and elementary concepts that inevitably led them to Bitcoin.
The UATX Bitcoin Curriculum
The Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency curriculum at the University of Austin is led by Associate Professor of Economics Dr. Hogan, who has deep expertise in economics and academia. He was previously the chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and has labored at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), the Cato Institute, the World Bank, and Merrill Lynch’s commodity buying and selling group, among others.
“Our introductory course is a combination of knowledge acquisition and practical skills. Students study the origins of Bitcoin, the mechanics of the network, and how Bitcoin helps protect human rights. At the same time, they get to install a wallet, make trades on Bitcoin and Lightning, and spin up their own Bitcoin miner,” Dr. Hogan advised Bitcoin Magazine.
Unlike other on-line sources and instructional supplies, UATX leans into its shut connections with the Bitcoin business in Texas, unlocking a private and hands-on expertise with the expertise. Jack Platts from Hypersphere Ventures donated bitcoin to the college students, while Cholla Inc, Gideon Powell, and Brad Cuddy donated Antminer S9 miners that college students set up in their dorms (which they used to be part of a mining pool). Pierre Rochard has given visitor lectures, guiding college students through Lightning Network transactions. The class even had a area journey to Riot’s mining facility in Rockdale, Texas, where an previous aluminum smelting facility has been turned by Riot into a Bitcoin mine. Students acquired books like “Gradually, Then Suddenly,” “The Satoshi Papers,” “Resistance Money,” and “The Genesis Block.”
While the Bitcoin curriculum has not been marketed much, Rosario revealed that the course “was the second most popular course that students bid on using our free market bidding system where they use points to select their courses. The only course that beat it out was a special elective by Niall Ferguson.”
“Beyond Bitcoin, the students learn about the unique aspects of other tokens and blockchains. They program and deploy basic smart contracts and explore how these tools can be used to build systems for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN),” added Dr. Hogan, who believes the public and verifiable nature of cryptographic finance has the potential to part out fraud and corruption discovered in legacy finance.
When requested about the novel dangers of crypto scams and Ponzi schemes, meme cash, rug pulls, and so on — particularly how the college offers with these matters from an instructional perspective — Rosario addressed the concern by saying that, “The best way we teach students about fraud, not just in digital assets but in their careers and lives, is by providing an intellectual foundation at the core of our curriculum that builds their mind and character. Our students are highly agentic, here to build an institution, not just attend a university. Our tagline is the fearless pursuit of truth, teaching the intellectual foundations of the Western tradition, from ancient Greeks to modern philosophers and economists. When teaching half on Bitcoin and half on cryptocurrency, UATX is ecumenical. To build the life of the mind, students must be introduced to different ideas.”
Dr. Hogan emphasised the transparency and reliability of blockchains as in contrast to conventional monetary networks. “Unlike an opaque monetary firm, the funds in a sensible contract can simply be verified on the blockchain. Unlike a financial institution switch or inventory commerce that might take days to clear, transactions on the blockchain can be verified within minutes,” he defined, including that, “In contrast, failed companies like FTX and the Celsius Network were not decentralized companies built on blockchain technology. They were traditional financial companies that failed for the same old reasons: excessive risk and outright fraud. Moving to blockchain-based systems will help prevent such collapses in the future.”
Dr. Hogan shared the unique schedule of lessons and visitor lecturers with Bitcoin Magazine, as seen beneath:
Part 1: Bitcoin
Week 1: Intro to Bitcoin and blockchains
Week 2: The Bitcoin and Lightning networks (Pierre Rochard)
Week 3: Bitcoin and human rights (Craig Warmke)
Week 4: Bitcoin mining and power economics
Week 5: The future of Bitcoin (Will Cole and Parker Lewis)
Part 2: Cryptocurrency and blockchain expertise
Week 6: Cryptocurrency and sensible contracts
Week 7: Decentralized finance (DeFi)
Week 8: Webpage and blockchain interactions (Phil Greenwald)
Week 9: Utility tokens and decentralized bodily infrastructure (Kyle Samani)
Week 10: The future of crypto and blockchains
Bitcoin in Academic Discourse: The Satoshi Papers
Beyond instructing Bitcoin to their college students, UATX has led a dialog about the societal that means and impression of Bitcoin in tutorial circles. In February of 2025, the college hosted the Satoshi Papers Symposium, a day of tutorial lectures celebrating the launch of the e-book by the Texas Bitcoin Foundation (TBF).
The Satoshi Papers, printed by the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) and edited by TBF govt director and BPI fellow Natalie Smolenski, “draws inspiration from the 18th-century American debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists about the role of government in preserving the liberties of individuals and communities.”
The e-book options a sequence of essays from a selection of students including economists, historians, anthropologists, and other social scientists, discussing the relationship between cash and state in a post-Bitcoin world.
A Bitcoin Endowment In Self Custody
In addition from their instructional and tutorial contributions to Bitcoin, UATX also maintain the asset in a custom-designed Bitcoin Endowment, and unlike many other universities who also carry bitcoin publicity via ETFs, the college has a robust perception in self custody, securing the funds in multisignature wallets in collaboration with Unchained Capital, an instrumental associate in the college’s foray into Bitcoin.
Joe Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Unchained, donated 2 bitcoin to the Endowment to kick-start it; the college is actively elevating a $5-million fund in bitcoin, which they have dedicated to holding in chilly storage for at least 5 years.
During the announcement made in June 2024, Kelly mentioned, “Both UATX and the Bitcoin community are building innovative institutions for the future. By choosing Unchained as a partner, the university is signaling its assessment of bitcoin’s function as a freedom-preserving technology, with our custody model helping to ensure there is no single point of failure to UATX’s long-term bitcoin holdings.”
This put up Bitcoin at UATX: A New Era of Intellectual Sovereignty first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.
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