With their popularity and sales soaring this year, many artists, musicians and athletes are issuing NFTs, including Super Bowl champion Tom Brady who started his own NFT company to sell digital memorabilia from sports icons and celebrities.
“This is an incredibly exciting space,“ said Finance Lecturer Anurag Wakhlu, who teaches Bentley students about NFTs and cryptocurrency in his Introduction to FinTech course. “Cryptocurrency and blockchain are here to stay and will have a major impact on our lives. We are just in the first inning of this new technology.”
The technology’s impact is the reason student Alex Kim ‘23 created the Bentley Blockchain Association, one of the few student-led blockchain groups in the nation. The group is partnering with the Blockchain Education Network and Boston Blockchain Association this fall to organize industry speakers and reach students who want to engage with this new technology.
“Students want to learn more about blockchain, decentralized finance and cryptocurrency investments,” said Kim, who plans to work as a blockchain consultant after graduation. “They know blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are influencing every industry, especially finance and accounting, where many are headed.”
With companies like JPMorgan Chase recently announcing that it will allow clients to invest in an actively managed Bitcoin fund for the first time, Wakhlu said the future employment opportunities are immense.
“The internships and jobs of the future are in this space, both with new companies focused on cryptocurrency and more traditional organizations that are adopting it,” Wakhlu said. “Just like data science did 10 years ago, this is exploding.”