Cypriot university to accept Bitcoin payments
(YahooFinance) Cyprus’ biggest private university said Thursday it will start
accepting the digital currency Bitcoin as an alternative way to pay
tuition fees.
been a hub for international banking before suffering a collapse in its
financial system this year, leading the government to impose controls on
the flow of capital as it accepted an international bailout.
But
the University of Nicosia said the move to accept Bitcoin was unrelated
to the controls. Rather, it was meant to help foreign students in
countries where traditional banking transactions are either difficult or
costly to pay for programs such as online degrees.
The
university’s chief financial officer, Christos Vlachos, said the
institution, which has about 8,500 students enrolled, is the first in
the world to take Bitcoin payments.
Bitcoin is a
cryptography-based digital currency that advocates say is
counterfeit-proof. Its value is determined by supply — which is limited
by its design — and demand. Among the various criticisms leveled at
Bitcoin are that it is too prone to price swings against other
currencies to be useful.
Vlachos said payments are free of risk
for the university since it immediately converts the digital currency to
euros at the day’s exchange rate.
He said that the university is
also offering a new Masters’ degree in digital currency, a field he says
is the monetary equivalent of the Internet in its infancy.
“It’s the gold of tomorrow,” Vlachos told the Associated Press.
He
said the Cypriot government should set up a regulatory framework to
attract digital currency trading companies and boost the bailed-out
country’s foundering economy.
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