Washington, D.C., August 24, 2026 — The Digital Sovereignty Alliance (DSA) announced the completion of its inaugural Digital Asset Case Study Course at St. Andrew's Episcopal School, a private school in Potomac, Maryland. The nonprofit, which is dedicated to advancing clear and ethical public policy, research, and education around emerging technologies, developed the four-session program in collaboration with Professor Charles C.Y. Wang, Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Giveback Backpack.

The course introduced high school students to real-world questions at the intersection of technology, markets, governance, and public policy — subject matter that has traditionally been concentrated at the university and professional level. It concluded on Saturday, August 22, with a case study class on Axie Infinity and Sky Mavis co-founder Jeff Zirlin. Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based game in which players own tradable digital assets, drew millions of daily players at its 2021 peak, many of them in the Philippines and other emerging markets, before the March 2022 breach of its Ronin Network — in which roughly $600 million in cryptocurrency was stolen and later attributed by U.S. authorities to North Korea's Lazarus Group — turned Sky Mavis into one of the most frequently examined companies in Web3. Students examined the company's business model and evolution while weighing broader questions surrounding digital ownership, community-driven economies, leadership, and the challenges confronting businesses operating at the frontier of Web3.

Professor Wang, a leading scholar in accounting, digital assets, and capital markets, brought the case method into the high school classroom. The approach, pioneered at Harvard Business School more than a century ago, places students in the role of decision-makers confronting actual business dilemmas; rather than delivering traditional lectures, he challenged students to take positions, defend their reasoning, question one another's assumptions, and work through the ambiguity inherent in real business decisions.

Across the four sessions, the program explored digital assets, capital markets, trust, leadership, and the future of business in a Web3 world. Students examined cases involving Alibaba, Coinbase, and Wells Fargo — companies whose histories include some of the most widely studied episodes in modern business, from Alibaba's record-setting 2014 public listing and Coinbase's 2021 Nasdaq listing to Wells Fargo's sales-practices scandal — gaining exposure to questions of technology, finance, governance, leadership, and emerging business models. As the course progressed, participants moved from analyzing individual companies to considering broader questions about how technology can reshape markets, institutions, and business models — engaging not simply as observers, but as active participants in the discussion.

"Students learn best when they have the chance to apply ideas to the real world," said Adrian Wall, Managing Director of DSA. "This program gave students the opportunity to move beyond learning about digital assets in the abstract. That is the lasting value of this program: equipping the next generation to engage critically and confidently with technologies that will increasingly influence business, public policy, and society."

With the program now complete, DSA said the course introduced students to a practical framework for thinking about some of the defining business and technology questions of the digital economy. The initiative is part of the organization's broader educational mission to equip young people with the critical-thinking skills needed to understand emerging technologies and engage thoughtfully with the opportunities and challenges they present — an effort that runs parallel to continuing debates in Washington over how digital assets and Web3 technologies should be governed, the policy arena at the center of the organization's advocacy.

About the Digital Sovereignty Alliance

The Digital Sovereignty Alliance (DSA) is a nonprofit social welfare organization committed to advocating for public policies that support ethical innovation in decentralized technologies, blockchain, cryptocurrency, Web3, and artificial intelligence. DSA conducts research, organizes educational events, and promotes policies that prioritize public welfare and digital sovereignty. More information is available at dsaf.org.

Media Contact

Maghan Lusk — PR@dsaf.org