We first posted this prospect in May 2022, months before generative artificial intelligence displaced blockchain as the principal technological anxiety of the education industry.
Blockchain has not disappeared; its ambitions have narrowed toward credentials, records and decentralized governance while artificial intelligence has raised the larger question of what the university—and perhaps the teacher—is for.
- Blockchain threatened the university’s machinery.
- AI threatens to interrogate its purpose.
The blockchain proposition asked: Do we still need a centralized institution to maintain records, confer credentials, distribute money and establish trust?
The AI proposition asks something considerably more uncomfortable: What are students paying the institution and faculty to do when machines can teach, explain, translate, draft, assess, search and increasingly conduct portions of research?
15 February 2025
Gm! 🟧
🎨Focus on the art not the noise 🙌PORDALS, pushes the boundaries of minimalism and narrative through a micro-to-macro approach, the smallest unit of measurement for digital color is a pixel. Inscriptions magnify the canvas to a visible size on Bitcoin. We create… pic.twitter.com/wsWNEqfZBq
— PORDALS (@pordals_) February 15, 2025
| Blockchain is a decentralized, immutable, and transparent digital ledger that securely records and verifies transactions across multiple computers or nodes. It operates through a network of participants who collectively validate and store each transaction, creating a chain of interconnected blocks. Each block contains a unique cryptographic hash that links it to the previous block, ensuring data integrity.
The distributed nature of blockchain eliminates the need for intermediaries, increases security, and fosters trust among participants. It has applications beyond cryptocurrencies, enabling efficient and reliable solutions in various industries such as finance, supply chain management, healthcare, education and accreditation. |
John Domingue | TEDxOpenUniversity:
“I believe that with blockchain technology we can create a radically new type of university: a DAO University. A DAO is a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation which operates with no central control and no humans in the loop and are based on Smart Contracts: pieces of computer code on a blockchain which can represent and enact financial and legal contracts. ”
Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote): “Ladran Sancho, señal que cabalgamos”
“Let the dogs bark Sancho, it is a sign that we’re moving forward.”
Blockchain is built so that the system keeps the data across several nodes that form a consensus on the exact position of the data. This storage method is different from the cloud, where data remains in one location and is easily accessible to an individual as a whole.
