UATX, The College of Austin, Texas, is rediscovering and redefining tutorial pursuit. Based in 2021, the start-up college stands as a protest to the mental dogma and the “woke” radicalization of main universities lately, focusing as an alternative on entrepreneurship and getting ready college students for a technologically and culturally advanced future.
These outdated values, rekindled by the chaos of modernity, have led UATX to Bitcoin: “The first principles of this institution share the same space, language, and ethos as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 presents and bitcoin endowment officer at UATX, informed Bitcoin Journal.
UATX has been making waves in current weeks and months with a wide range of Bitcoin-related bulletins, amongst them the publication of “The Satoshi Papers,” a e book comprising a set of political, social, and financial essays debating the influence and nature of Bitcoin, echoing the Federalist Papers (popularized in the course of the founding of the USA). Additionally they introduced a bitcoin endowment fund, one of many first within the nation, and so they boast a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency curriculum led by Dr. Thomas L. Hogan, which supplies college students hands-on expertise with the know-how and business. A lot in order that Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, lately 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.”
A Protest In opposition to Cancel Tradition 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 informed Bitcoin Journal. 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, on the time the president of St. John’s School, and Pano Kanelos, who had criticized the “illiberal” nature of conventional universities in trendy instances.
Kanelos, founding president and now chancellor of the College, put it finest 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 Heart for the Examine of Partisanship and Ideology. Kalenos identified 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 suppose otherwise and compelled to tackle a start-up mindset, regardless of being a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the UATX has a robust concentrate on entrepreneurship, historical past, economics, and classical Western philosophical thought — highly effective and basic concepts that inevitably led them to Bitcoin.
The UATX Bitcoin Curriculum
The Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency curriculum on the College of Austin is led by Affiliate 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 City Affairs, and has labored on the American Institute for Financial Analysis (AIER), the Cato Institute, the World Financial institution, and Merrill Lynch’s commodity buying and selling group, amongst 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 informed Bitcoin Journal.
Not like different on-line assets and academic supplies, UATX leans into its shut connections with the Bitcoin business in Texas, unlocking a private and hands-on expertise with the know-how. Jack Platts from Hypersphere Ventures donated bitcoin to the scholars, whereas Cholla Inc, Gideon Powell, and Brad Cuddy donated Antminer S9 miners that college students arrange of their dorms (which they used to hitch a mining pool). Pierre Rochard has given visitor lectures, guiding college students by Lightning Community transactions. The category even had a discipline journey to Riot’s mining facility in Rockdale, Texas, the place an outdated aluminum smelting facility has been turned by Riot right into a Bitcoin mine. College students acquired books like “Gradually, Then Suddenly,” “The Satoshi Papers,” “Resistance Money,” and “The Genesis Block.”
Whereas the Bitcoin curriculum has not been marketed a lot, 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 general public and verifiable nature of cryptographic finance has the potential to section out fraud and corruption present in legacy finance.
When requested concerning the novel dangers of crypto scams and Ponzi schemes, meme cash, rug pulls, and so forth — particularly how the college offers with these matters from an academic perspective — Rosario addressed the priority 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 comparison with conventional monetary networks. “Unlike an opaque financial company, the funds in a smart contract can easily be verified on the blockchain. Unlike a bank transfer or stock trade 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 Journal, as seen beneath:
Half 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 way forward for Bitcoin (Will Cole and Parker Lewis)
Half 2: Cryptocurrency and blockchain know-how
Week 6: Cryptocurrency and good 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 way forward for crypto and blockchains
Bitcoin in Educational Discourse: The Satoshi Papers
Past instructing Bitcoin to their college students, UATX has led a dialog concerning the societal which means and influence of Bitcoin in tutorial circles. In February of 2025, the college hosted the Satoshi Papers Symposium, a day of educational lectures celebrating the launch of the e book by the Texas Bitcoin Basis (TBF).
The Satoshi Papers, printed by the Bitcoin Coverage 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 encompasses a collection of essays from a wide range of students together with economists, historians, anthropologists, and different social scientists, discussing the connection between cash and state in a post-Bitcoin world.
A Bitcoin Endowment In Self Custody
As well as from their academic and tutorial contributions to Bitcoin, UATX additionally maintain the asset in a custom-designed Bitcoin Endowment, and in contrast to many different universities who additionally carry bitcoin publicity by way of ETFs, the college has a robust perception in self custody, securing the funds in multisignature wallets in collaboration with Unchained Capital, an instrumental accomplice within 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’ve dedicated to holding in chilly storage for at the very least 5 years.
In the course of the announcement made in June 2024, Kelly stated, “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.”
