SFU recently announced that it won’t be accepting Bitcoin as payment for student services in the near future — however, the university is open to the possibility.
Mark McLaughlin, executive director of SFU ancillary services, said that the university must monitor Bitcoin’s stability and longevity before seriously considering accepting it on campus. Nevertheless, McLaughlin said he wants to encourage student engagement and respond to demands from SFU’s prominent Bitcoin club.
SFU’s Bitcoin club was the first of its kind established at a Canadian university, and continues to play an active role in making Vancouver a hub for Bitcoin enthusiasts. Esther Tung, the club’s VP communications, said that users are attracted to both the social and economic benefits of cryptocurrencies.
Tung explained that, as a digital currency, Bitcoin is decentralized and protected from government devaluation. Bitcoin provides instantaneous transactions and acts as a universal currency; this is good news for people in developing countries who have limited access to physical currency or bank accounts, but who probably have Internet access, Tung explained. Using Bitcoin allows these small merchants to participate in otherwise unreachable global markets.
“Bitcoin has a lot of potential for social change,” said Tung. Although McLaughlin agreed, he maintained that SFU will wait until the value of Bitcoin stabilizes before looking into it further.
“We have to make sure what we do is built to last,” McLaughlin said. While both McLaughlin and Tung think cryptocurrencies are here to stay, there is some speculation about whether or not Bitcoin will maintain its position as the forerunner in cryptocurrency.
McLaughlin told The Peak that SFU is looking into hyper-local currencies such as Seedstock, which could be used as a campus-wide currency with a portion of the proceeds donated to SFU-affiliated charities.
Although Tung admitted that the price of Bitcoin is volatile right now, services like Bitpay offer merchants the option to cash out at the time of the transaction regardless of currency fluctuation after the fact.
Therefore, Tung said, “There is virtually no risk for the university, other than, I mean, if Bitcoin goes to zero,” a possibility she considers to be extremely unlikely.
Regardless of the risk, McLaughlin sees this as a potential opportunity for SFU to live up to its reputation as an innovative, engaging university. “Would we love to be the first university in North America to accept Bitcoin?” McLaughlin mused. “Yeah, I think that would be a really neat thing.”
If the value of Bitcoin stabilizes over the summer, McLaughlin envisions SFU accepting it as a pilot project at the bookstore or dining services as early as fall 2014. However, he does not see the university accepting Bitcoin for tuition payments any time soon.
Tung remained skeptical of the university’s claims, saying, “No matter how much [SFU] says that it’s progressive and it wants to engage the world, they’re still conservative at heart.” She doesn’t think Bitcoin will enter the mainstream until it is accepted by more retailers or institutions; then, for example, SFU could pay its employees in Bitcoin without them having to cashing out to buy food or other on-campus services.
While McLaughlin can’t promise any immediate changes to SFU policy, he applauded the leadership role that Tung and other students have taken in the international Bitcoin community and said that he and his colleagues are definitely paying attention.
With so much uncertainty around Bitcoin’s future and yet so many opportunities for social change, McLaughlin said, “It’s interesting to see where this all takes us — check back in six months.”
