Bitcoin Daily: Majority Of Top 50 Colleges Offer Crypto Courses; Crypto Trading Will Not Be Taxed In Portugal

New data from Coinbase has found that 56 percent of the world’s top 50 universities now offer at least one course on crypto or blockchain — up from 42 percent last year.

And students are showing interest, with twice as many students taking a crypto or blockchain course this year than they did in 2018. Cornell University tops the Coinbase 2019 Leaders in Crypto Education list, currently offering 14 classes on cryptocurrency and/or blockchain.

There are also four international schools on the list, including École Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne in Switzerland and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

“There’s a lot of power for students to enter this industry and help take control of it,” said Cornell Blockchain club co-founder and recent graduate Joseph Ferrera. “If you go to a big bank or a well-established consulting firm, you kind of know what you’re going to get. With crypto you get to shape the field and become a leader.”

In other news, Portugal’s Tax Authority has announced that both cryptocurrency trading and payments in crypto will not be taxed in the country.

Coin Telegraph reported that the confirmation follows a previous tax ruling by the regulator that cryptos should not be taxed in Portugal. The tax authority also cited a 2015 ruling by the European Court of Justice that ruled that bitcoin is a means of payment so an exchange should be exempted from VAT obligations.

And according to CoinDesk, sources have revealed that Telegram Open Network (TON) is expected to release the code needed to run its node on Sept. 1.

The blockchain project, which was announced last year by the Telegram messaging app, has so far had only one operational node — run by Telegram itself — on its test network. Reports say the release will contain code for the node, as well as instructions for deploying a node.