It is safe to say the world’s economy is in shambles. The prices of everyday items continue to rise at a record pace, along with energy bills, there is the specter of war in the center of Europe, and the supply chain squeeze keeps squeezing. Turkey was one of the countries that were hit the hardest, with its Lira crashing by over 40% since last September. (Lira-USD price: TradingView)
In turn, this resulted in increased crypto trading, jumping over 1 million per day. Yet, even before Lira’s crash, the Turkish user base has grown 11x from 2020 to 2021. On the back of this rise of popularity, Turkish university is getting in with the times.
Introduction to NFT Class
Ankara University is pioneering non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for its 66,000 students in the country’s capital. The new curriculum, simply called “Introduction to NFT,” is lectured by academic Buğra Ayan. The rector of the university, Necdet Ünüvar, is pleased that NFTs are being taught as an important milestone in bolstering Ankara University’s high-tech curriculum.
By the same token, Tourism Minister Özgül Özkan Yavuz thinks NFTs are important because they combine both the artistic and technological sides of the equation
“We believe that NFT will trigger artistic creativity, skills and talents among youth,”
The course will also cover the business dimension of deploying NFTs, which could be the most important one. After all, it is how NFTs are represented to the public that usually ends up giving them value.
What Is the Turkish Sentiment on Digital Assets?
When it comes to grading thousands of cryptocurrencies by preference, 7 out of 10 Turks prefer Bitcoin to altcoins, according to crypto exchange Paribu. Previously, in 2020, 5 out of 6 respondents had never even heard of Bitcoin or the concept of cryptos.
However, inflation fears are a powerful incentive, triggering Paribu’s user base growth from 600k to over 4 million in less than a year. Interestingly, if one is familiar with Bitcoin, it doesn’t mean they are knowledgeable about its underlying blockchain technology. An astonishing 80% of respondents who knew about cryptos never heard of such a thing.
For this reason alone, it makes sense to integrate blockchain classes across the board. While it is easy to come across such information online, making it institutional accelerates the knowledge and adoption rate. While the first NFT class is presently reserved for a single university in Turkey’s capital, soon others will follow, trickling down to the lower high-school level as well.
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