I have an opportunity to teach a university course on bitcoin. I’m planning to start with one or a few students in a summer course and work through the material informally to help me develop a more formal course down the road.
I’m hoping the material and presentations I develop can be used by the Sovryn community. I have some specific questions and my current thinking outlined in a Google doc. I would love to get your input on best format, assignments, favorite resources, and topical coverage.
Please share your feedback here, or use the Google doc if you have more extended feedback.
For your question about what books to use. I would have a look at the forthcoming book by Bailey, Rettler and Warmke: Resistance Money: A Philosophical Case for Bitcoin (link, would need to ask them for their draft). Other than that, I think the work by Antonopoulos. (You mention The Bullish Case for Bitcoin in your document but I think that is far less fitting for a university course to be honest. I think the Bitcoin Standard is overrated too).
Something else. A while back, I was thinking of how cool it would be if there was a closed community accessible only to Sovryns (aka SOV stakers), where content could be shared and discussed, a Sovryn Cafe, Salon, University, pick your label. Your course would exactly be the sort of thing that would fit that. The Sovryn Teas that Yago did earlier also often provided really quality discussions, and would also fit that. It might be an interesting way to build community. I wonder how hard it would be to create a closed environment tied to the Bitocracy (if anyone reading this is familiar with something of this kind, let me know).
I appreciate your taking the time to give input. And I appreciate all your thoughtful comments on the forum recently! I know that takes a lot of time and effort. I looked at the book you mentioned. I like the outline. I really doubt they would give me a draft though, especially given that it’s under contract with a publisher.
The other references are just that – references. I don’t expect to have a single, definitive textbook for the course. Just some supplemental reading. I’m trying to figure out what if anything I’ll require them to buy or just read if it’s freely available.
I really like your idea about a Sovryn community. I’m not sure how to determine membership though. Would staking 1 SOV qualify someone? 10K SOV? It’s a tough call. I may be able to package this class up into some sort of structured class for community members. A counterargument to a closed community would be an open community that attracts new Sovryn participants by making available useful content and interactions.
I was working on a similar concept. imagine this, and online learning app with social media features, so that you can add the courses you are taking into your profile with the badges or credentials you’ve earned from you completed courses. This would allow you to connect and interact with others that are studying the same things as you, follow and help each other.
There would be a VIP area behind a paywall, SOV stakers of a certain amount could gain free access to this. And some special content will be there with more features.
In this way like @one_digit suggested we can keep the university open for new users and attract people, while also having our own private area for the community and the patreons who pay X amount per month.
My idea was also that in this private area we could decide how to use the income to fund more courses, or even buy SOV and stake to create a revenue source for the university itself in BTC.
I was even contemplating issuing either NFTs or tokens to the people who create the courses, which could then be used to distribute a % of the revenue. So that the teachers can also have a stake in the growth of the platform.
This is something I was working on before starting my trial at Sovryn and I’m contemplating if it is something that we should build within it, or if it would have more merit to be separate but still looking to drive value back to Sovryn.
I would love at some stage to discuss these ideas further as I think there is a potential for something interesting that could attract more users and grow the ecosystem.
I am close to an MVP although since I started working in Sovryn I haven’t had much time to dedicate to this. Maybe in the weekend I can get closer to something I can share with all of you.