Can You Really Pay School Fees in Bitcoin? This UK School Says YES! | Bitcoin News by CoinCorner

Transcript

A school in Scotland are going all-in on Bitcoin, using it to accept fees from parents, but they're also developing a new curriculum to educate students about the asset. Ideas are being floated around in the US that tariffs could be a way for the government to fund their budget-neutral Bitcoin purchases. And Bitwise reveal that public companies are continuing to accumulate Bitcoin at a rapid pace.

Welcome back to Bitcoin News, brought to you by CoinCorner. I'm your host, Alex Glasse. Now let's get straight into this week's top stories.

After a pretty underwhelming Q1, Bitcoin's off to a better start in Q2. It's up around 2% so far, and the price seems to be consolidating near $84,000 per coin. The markets are still watching the bigger picture - especially to see how Trump's proposed tariffs might continue to shake up the macro environment. And it seems everyone's waiting to see if bond yields and US interest rates are finally going to start coming down.

For now though, Bitcoin's recent sell-off seems to have calmed, and the price action is looking a bit more stable - at least for the moment.

Now for our first story. A private boarding school in Scotland has announced that they will become the first school in the UK to accept school fees in Bitcoin. Lman School principal Cla Chisum revealed the plan at the Cheat Code Bitcoin Conference in Bedford last week. The request, made by local and international families, will become reality in the autumn term of 2025.

Bitcoin will be the only cryptocurrency accepted by Lman School, and initially, to mitigate currency risk from the volatility, they'll be converting it back into Great British Pounds. However, they do have plans to possibly develop a Bitcoin strategy in the future.

As well as this, the school also revealed that they're working with Saifedean Ammous, author of The Bitcoin Standard, to develop a new curriculum on Austrian economics and decentralised technologies. As of August 2025, they'll be integrating this to teach students about sound money principles and Bitcoin in the classroom.

Also on the topic of accepting Bitcoin for payments - Panama City have approved a measure enabling residents to pay for public services using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This new system will provide residents with a new way to pay for services like tax, permits, and fines.

Much like Lman School, Panama City will not be holding on to the cryptocurrencies. Once they're received through their banking partner, the funds will be automatically converted into US dollars to comply with current legal requirements, as new legislation would need to be passed if they were to hold on to the crypto assets.

Also in the news - VANX Head of Research has pitched a new type of US Treasury bond that he believes will help the country refinance $14 trillion of their national debt. Matthew Sigel's idea of "BitBonds" would be a new 10-year Treasury made up of 90% traditional debt and 10% Bitcoin exposure.

Sigel explained his reasoning for the product: as interest rates are relatively high versus history, the Treasury must maintain continued investor demand for bonds, so they have to entice buyers. Meanwhile, bond investors want protection from US dollar inflation and asset inflation, which makes Bitcoin a good fit as a component of the bond, as the cryptocurrency has emerged as an inflation hedge.

One interesting point though is that investors would be capped on the yield they get back from the Bitcoin gains to a maximum of 4.5%, and any gains above that would be split 50/50 between the government and the bond buyer. Love or hate this idea, it's definitely exciting to see Bitcoin being taken so seriously amongst mainstream financial assets.

Now speaking of the US government - this week, Bo Hines, Executive Director of the Digital Assets Council, shared further details on how the US government could try and buy Bitcoin in budget-neutral ways, which include revenue from tariffs. During a sit-down with Anthony Pompliano, Hines discussed how everything is on the table as they want as much Bitcoin as they can get - as with any other asset with an intrinsic store of value.

He said there are many high-IQ people working on these solutions of how to accumulate more Bitcoin. These include Cynthia Lummis' plan to revalue US gold reserves at the current market rate to then use the excess to purchase Bitcoin, but also potentially using income generated from Trump's new tariffs.

It seems they're still in the planning process of this strategy and don't want to give too much away, but Hines said his personal goal of how much Bitcoin the government should accumulate is "infinite".

Another country potentially looking to follow in the footsteps of the US is Sweden. This week, a Swedish MP proposed the idea to the government of building a Bitcoin reserve in a budget-neutral way. In a letter to the finance minister, MP Rickard Nordin outlined how in many parts of the world Bitcoin is used as a means of payments and as security against rising inflation, whilst also being an important way for freedom fighters to handle payments when under oppression or authoritarian regimes.

It's unclear how this will be received by the Swedish government, but either way, it suggests the race by nation states to adopt Bitcoin is on.

Now for our final story - according to a post from Bitwise, Bitcoin held by public companies has risen by 16% in Q1 of 2025. Some of the key facts outlined are that 12 new companies now hold Bitcoin on their corporate balance sheets, bringing the total up to 79 companies. 95,000 Bitcoins have also been purchased over the quarter, bringing the total corporate holding up to 688,000 coins - or 3.28% of the entire Bitcoin supply.

Even this week, corporate buyers aren't slowing down, with Simulr Scientific looking to raise $500 million to buy more, Metaplanet in Japan have purchased another 319, HK Asia an additional 10, and Strategy - the largest corporate Bitcoin holder - picking up an extra 3,459 coins.

Now just before I let you get back to your day, a quick public service announcement - Bitcoin Core 29.0.0 has just been released and is now available to download. So if you're running a node, it might be time to update, since versions 26 and earlier won't be getting any more updates going forward.

With that being said though, that's all we have for you today. If you got value from the video, please drop a like down below and make sure you subscribe so that you never miss an update of Bitcoin News.