Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Receives Honorary Doctorate from the University of Basel

The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the oldest Swiss university, the University of Basel.

The University, founded in 1460, organizes the Dies Academicus Ceremony every year to honor various meritorious personalities for their contributions to science and society. This year’s prizewinners were also appointed honorary doctors. This year’s winners were:

Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin
Hospice founder, Verena Grether
Medical Engineer, Robert Riener
Federal Judge, Thomas Stadelmann
Neuroscientist, Thomas R. Insel
Theologian, Hans-Martin Barth
Illustrator, Armin Coray
Economist, Beatrice Weder di Mauro, who was also awarded the Alumni Prize.

Vitalik Buterin, only 24 years old, received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Economics of the University. According to the University of Basel, he received the award for the following reasons.

[Vitalik Buterin] received the award for his contribution to promoting decentralization and equal rights of participation in the digital revolution and for his achievements in crypto currencies, Smaert contracts and institutional design.

The co-founder and inventor of “Ethereum” – a decentralized platform based on block-chain technology – has written his scientific publications without an academic degree and without any ties to a university.

.@VitalikButerin receives an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Basel. The co-founder of @ethereum has made outstanding achievements in the fields of #cryptocurrencies, smart contracts and the design of institutions. pic.twitter.com/6d6ftTG56n

– University of Basel (@UniBasel_en) November 30, 2018

The wunderkind Vitalik Buterin

It is worth mentioning that Vitalik left the University of Waterloo in 2014 to realize his dreams in technology. Before leaving, Buterin received the two-year Thiel scholarship, which grants $100,000 to 20 promising innovators under the age of 20 to pursue their inventions instead of university education.

The award is not the first for Vitalik Buterin, who has already received various awards for his contributions and efforts in the technology sector. In November 2014, the co-founder of Ethereum received the World Technology Award in the “IT Software” category. With the award Buterin joined a venerable list of tech luminaries such as Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX. Buterin was honoured with the award only a few months after the publication of the Ethereum-Whitepaper.