The rivalry between students from the UK’s universities of Oxford and Cambridge is about to take on a crypto bent.
Their history of (usually friendly) antagonism dates back centuries, perhaps as far as to 1209 when, per Cambridge records, a group of Oxford scholars fled from hostile townsfolk and settled in Cambridge, setting up their own university.
The universities have maintained a fiery but friendly rivalry ever since, with events such as the annual Boat Race on the River Thames allowing the rival students to duke it out on the waters.
But the two famous seats of learning have now turned to blockchain technology for a brand new way to allow students to battle for bragging rights – via an algorithmic trading competition that enables the students at both academic powerhouses to compete in cryptoasset trading.
Hosted by the London-based digital asset analytics platform APEX:E3, the competition is supported by a number of exchanges and blockchain businesses, including Coinbase, FTX, SIX Digital Exchange, LMAX Digital and ConsenSys Mesh.
Participating Mathematics and Computer Science Department students were on-boarded on November 16, and the competition is scheduled to conclude in December 2020, the platform’s operator said in a press release.
The teams’ efforts will be evaluated by a panel of industry judges who will assess their performance based on Return on Investment, Trading Strategy and Technical Algo Design categories.
As part of the competition, each team is provided with seed capital, technical support and trading mentorship. The winning team will receive an additional, crypto-flavored reward: They will be able to keep their seed capital and any returns they make on their trades.
Peter Stillwell, Head of European Operations at Coinbase, stated,
“Helping introduce and educate students on Digital Assets at a time when people all around the world are looking for new ways to learn and challenge themselves is something we are all very excited about here.”
Meanwhile, Usman Khan, the CEO of APEX:E3, said that the company has been “really energized” by the initial feedback from Oxford and Cambridge students, and was looking forward to increasing the number of participating universities in 2021.
Set up in 2019, APEX:E3 claims to track more than 5,000 markets and support some 20 exchanges.
A similar inter-university crypto trade showdown currently operates in Japan, with a number of top-level economics and mathematics students taking part.
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Learn more: What Will Students Learn at China’s First Blockchain Undergrad Course?
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