""I thought it was an opportunity for the university to take on a new field and maybe build a franchise in this area," said David Yermack, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, of his decision to offer a digital-currency class in 2014. Today, he says, "the thing has really taken on a life of its own.""
"In essence, it is a just a distributed ledger to record transactions. What makes it special is that it is durable, time-stamped, transparent and decentralized. Those characteristics are equally useful for managing financial transactions as for a system of reputation. In fact, you can think of reputation as a type of currency for social capital, rather than financial capital."