An Australian university’s blockchain research institute is facing an uncertain future despite a blistering crypto market rally, with one professor claiming on X it has been “shut down.”
“The first econ and social science blockchain research center was shut down by RMIT,” Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) Blockchain Innovation Hub member Professor Ellie Rennie said in a Nov. 22 X post, adding there was “no clear reason” why.
But, the institute’s co-director, Professor Jason Potts — also Rennie’s husband — told Cointelegraph that it’s a “fluid situation” that is “still in discussion” and “no decision” had been made on whether it would be shut down.
“It was my understanding that yesterday the Blockchain Hub was being shut down,” Rennie said, walking back her earlier posts on X after Cointelegraph asked for further comment. “Today, there are now ongoing discussions.”
RMIT’s process requires that it consult with staff for one week, meaning Potts would need to pitch a viable solution to finance the Hub if it is to survive, people with knowledge of the matter told Cointelegraph.
The hub, which opened in 2017, hasn’t produced enough high-quality research or consulting work to garner enough funding to be self-sustaining, they said.
Unusual timing
RMIT’s discussions over whether to shut down the research center come just as crypto has been roaring back into mainstream consciousness.
Bitcoin BTC
$99,005 has rocketed 45% to nearly $100,000 after Donald Trump’s election win, who promised to overhaul crypto regulations in the United States.
A person familiar with the situation, given anonymity to discuss the matter, said Potts and co-founder Professor Chris Berg had repeatedly told staff that the Hub is “an experiment.”
The source said Potts had spoken of how the Hub aimed to develop “a new type of business school” where academics were expected to be “industry-engaged and entrepreneurial” and that getting published in top-tier journals — important for a university’s clout and getting research funded — “was a secondary consideration.” This may be why the Hub couldn’t fit into “standard university procedures.”
“We were told the university wanted us to rapidly gain a reputation in the blockchain space that it could then leverage to gain students and industry relevance,” the person said.
“We were working to industry time in a fast-moving business environment and could not keep to ‘academic time’ and practices,” the person said. “That argument was made to us many times.”
It is understood the decision on whether to shut the Hub will come down to RMIT’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Business, Professor Colin Picker.
While funding may have been challenging to acquire in recent years, the global landscape may be altered by the election of a pro-crypto President in the US.
Across the world, many countries’ regulators look to the US — the world’s largest economy with its leading financial center, New York City — as a guide on how to regulate their local markets.
Perceptions of crypto have shifted with Trump’s win, who has promised the US will be “the world capital of crypto” and will reign in the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has launched countless lawsuits against local industry players and whose current Chair is set to quit when the president-elect is sworn in.
In Australia, some within the center-right Liberal Party have pledged support for the local industry in the leading up to a federal election slated on or before May 17, 2025.
Local players have called for clearer consumer protection laws for crypto, with local exchange Swyftx estimating a wave of potential investors are being sidelined due to “the risk of entering an unregulated market.”
