‘Harvard Thinks It’s Bitcoin When It’s Ethereum’: Jeff Park Burns Harvard University

Jeff Park has joined Elon Musk’s crypto discussion with a straightforward assertion: Harvard’s admissions process operates more like Ethereum than Bitcoin. It makes a difference. Hard caps, rigid regulations and restrictions that are regarded as unchangeable are all represented by Bitcoin. 

Key difference in governance

In contrast, Ethereum is controlled by policy layered on top of code discretionary changes and social consensus. According to Park, Harvard quietly exercises broad discretion behind the scenes while portraying admissions scarcity as a natural law.

In response to Elon Musk’s remarks regarding a broken deal and an unfair playing field, Park proposed that admitting one more student would be the obvious solution. The issue is that elite institutions find this idea naive.

Even when scarcity is obviously artificial, it is revered. Admissions at elite universities are frequently presented as a zero-sum game controlled by capacity constraints and fairness. However, as Park notes, these limitations are not physical. These choices are related to governance. 

Class-size selection criteria and background or identity weighting are all modifiable. As a result, the system is not fixed but programmable. This opinion is supported by recent criticisms of Harvard University. In contrast to the notion of an impartial rule-bound procedure, reports from instructors and applicants detail informal exclusions and changing standards.

Harvard’s system

The system is no longer similar to Bitcoin when results vary annually due to internal priorities. Regardless of whether the organization acknowledges it or not, it is social-layer governance. Because crypto-native audiences can spot the category error right away, Park’s analogy succeeds. It is meaningless to refer to a system as fair just because it has set rules if those rules are selectively enforced or rewritten informally. 

Ethereum does not act as though there is no governance. It is Bitcoin. According to Park, Harvard’s error is not that it controls admissions but rather that it denies that it does. The institution avoids taking accountability for its decisions by insisting on the language of hard caps and inevitability. Harvard does not operate a hard-capped chain in terms of cryptocurrency; it is controlling governance while also rejecting it.