Colleges Are Baffled by Bitcoin Donations
A crypto entrepreneur had to teach his alma mater how to accept his $10,000 gift.
Harvard Business School.
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The University of Puget Sound got an offer it wasn’t sure how to accept. A recent graduate had hit the jackpot and wanted to make a donation to the school. In Bitcoin.
Colleges have long wrestled with accepting atypical donations, such as art or shares in a family business, that can muddle their investment portfolios. The gifts may raise accounting questions, complicate tax filings, or require special storage or security. Bitcoin—unregulated, notoriously volatile, and sometimes stolen by hackers—raised every one of those concerns. But back in 2014, the private liberal arts college in Tacoma, Wash., happened to have a number of alumni pioneering cryptocurrencies and generating small fortunes. So the school, with a $370 million endowment, needed to do some research before reaching a decision.