Today we attended lectures at the University of Nicosia. First, we started with Fleet Management Limited who spoke on the importance of the ship management industry. In most cases those who own the ships do not run them but rather sign contracts with ship management companies to operate the ships. The ship management companies run the day-to-day operations including shift changes and the oversight of the production of new ships. In addition, they stated that it cost anywhere between $5000-8000 to run a ship daily however these same ships make upwards of $5000 a day. Moreover, they spoke about the shipping industry at large, including different sizes of ships, important shipping locations, and the role containers play.

Following the lecture on shipping we sat down to receive a lecture on blockchain and cryptocurrency. The University of Nicosia is one of the leading universities in the world on this topic. Furthermore, they were the first to offer classes and a master’s degree in digital currencies. We learned how society is based in databases. Everything one does from ordering an Uber, to using a hotel keycard works in databases. However, these databases are centralized with individuals who run and can edit the database. But, with crypto not one person runs the system nor can edit and access the database, making it decentralized. Bitcoin was the first to implement and design this system, acting as a permissionless means of storing value. Moreover, Bitcoin is fungible, meaning that anyone bitcoin is not unique and can be replaced by any other identical bitcoin. Much how cash is replaceable, a $20 bill is a $20 bill. the individual identity is unimportant. With the development of NFTs, one can have a digital token but actually prove individual ownership as they are wholly unique. These lectures were extremely insightful into areas I knew little about.