MIT announced that its students will head into fall 2014 with $100 in bitcoin to spend, courtesy alumni and others in the Bitcoin community. Learn more!
From Snapchat to Facebook to the Web itself, students have always been at the heart and the head of digital innovation. In fact, back in the ‘80s, our CEO, Jeremy Allaire, tested out the early Internet from a rigged connection to his dorm room at Macalester, kicking off a lifelong obsession with the Web and open technologies. Today, university students are diving into Bitcoin with the same enthusiasm, and we can only begin to imagine what they’ll accomplish.
This morning, MIT announced that each of its approximately 4,500 students will head into the fall 2014 semester with $100 in bitcoin to spend, courtesy of generous donations from MIT alumni and others in the Bitcoin community. Announcing this news ahead of time gives MIT’s inventive students time to investigate Bitcoin and to think of interesting applications over the summer, and it also affords local merchants time to begin accepting the currency.
This MIT experiment will show what can be possible when bitcoin is widely owned and accepted among a specific population. It will increase awareness and understanding of the technology among students, faculty, alumni, and the broader Cambridge community. It’s a great step forward for both Bitcoin technology and broader financial innovation.
We at Circle are proud to support the vibrant community of Bitcoin enthusiasts at MIT. Earlier this year, our CEO, Jeremy Allaire, explained Bitcoin and why it’s important to an overflowing room at a meeting of the MIT Bitcoin Club (video below).
This weekend, our CTO, Sean Neville, will present at the MIT Bitcoin Expo, an event that will break down Bitcoin basics and explore its potential. Catch his presentation, “Mainstreaming Digital Currency,” at MIT’s Stata Center at 12:55pm on Saturday. Registration is free!
