April 29, 2014 at 22:05All MIT students will be given the equivalent of $ 100 in bitcoins
Two cryptocurrency enthusiasts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - students Dan Elitzer and Jeremy Rubin - managed to find funding for an unusual experiment . They want to create the Bitcoin ecosystem based on MIT. As part of the experiment, each student of the institute will receive a bitcoin wallet, in which there will be an equivalent of $ 100. Students can spend this money as they please. Elitzer and Rubin want to ensure that Bitcoins are distributed on the MIT campus just like regular money or payment cards.
The project initiators want to see what happens if bitcoins become a publicly available and generally accepted means of payment in a small local community. Now bitcoins are still the lot of enthusiasts scattered around the world and communicating via the Internet. If everyone has bitcoins on the MIT campus, this can give a strong incentive to local businesses to organize the acceptance of payments to them. If students appreciate the benefits of bitcoins and start using them every day, this may spur the development of cryptocurrency-related software, the emergence of Bitcoin-based startups.
In total, Elitzer and Rubin were able to raise $ 500,000. This is enough to distribute the required amount in the fall to 4528 students and organize information support for the experiment, in particular, to agitate the local business to arrange bitcoin reception by September. Jeremy Rubin compares this experiment with providing students with free access to the network at the dawn of the Internet era - for many of today's technical experts and Internet entrepreneurs, the path to a profession or business began with a university or community network.
The project initiators want to see what happens if bitcoins become a publicly available and generally accepted means of payment in a small local community. Now bitcoins are still the lot of enthusiasts scattered around the world and communicating via the Internet. If everyone has bitcoins on the MIT campus, this can give a strong incentive to local businesses to organize the acceptance of payments to them. If students appreciate the benefits of bitcoins and start using them every day, this may spur the development of cryptocurrency-related software, the emergence of Bitcoin-based startups.
In total, Elitzer and Rubin were able to raise $ 500,000. This is enough to distribute the required amount in the fall to 4528 students and organize information support for the experiment, in particular, to agitate the local business to arrange bitcoin reception by September. Jeremy Rubin compares this experiment with providing students with free access to the network at the dawn of the Internet era - for many of today's technical experts and Internet entrepreneurs, the path to a profession or business began with a university or community network.