WCPO: Gift allows UC to launch new cryptocurrency fund, lab
Lindner Dean Marianne Lewis highlights the educational opportunities available
The University of Cincinnati is launching a pair of programs focused on cryptocurrency and new financial technologies thanks to gifts via longtime champions Dan Kautz and Woodrow (Woody) Uible.
The gifts will fashion an educational program within the Carl H. Lindner College of Business — including a cryptocurrency fund that will promote student learning of blockchain technology and digital assets — as well as the public-private Kautz-Uible Cryptoeconomics Lab in the new Digital Futures building, set to open this coming fall.
Marianne Lewis, PhD, Lindner dean and professor of management.
“Cryptocurrency is in its infancy. It’s going to continue to develop and evolve,” Lindner Dean Marianne Lewis, PhD, told WCPO-TV. “I think one of the beauties of us building coursework, as well as this lab around it, is to learn as that volatility shifts, [we] start to better understand where that value is in terms of securing assets, trading assets. I think there’s a lot to be learned. And it is going to be a moving target.”
The new lab and fund aim to supply students with experience and know-how critical for employment with digital asset companies. These capabilities will complement how Lindner’s Johnson Investment Counsel Student-Managed Fund and Investment Lab — part of the Johnson Investment Institute — empower hands-on education in equity valuation and portfolio management.
Led by Kautz-Uible Economics Institute Academic Director Michael Jones, PhD, the Kautz-Uible Cryptoeconomics Lab will form a space for corporate partnerships for the research of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Jones will soon spearhead a two-day event with 30 local CEOs in the Digital Futures building, educating these business leaders on the essentials of cryptoeconomics.
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