Students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have the right to receive their share of a bitcoin fund worth around half a million dollars so that to encourage use and awareness of the digital currency.
Students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have the right to receive their share of a bitcoin fund worth around half a million dollars so that to encourage use and awareness of the digital currency.
The MIT Bitcoin Project, the student club that is organizing the deal, is offering MIT undergraduates $100 worth of bitcoin in return for completing a survey before the scheme ends on 2nd November, which means that students who are looking to obtain the free funds have to hurry.
The MIT Bitcoin Project was announced on 29 April after two MIT students, Dan Elitzer and Jeremy Rubin raised $500,000 for the project from university alumni and members of the bitcoin community.
The aim of the project was to distribute the funds in bitcoin to the more than 4,500 undergraduate students registered at MIT to arouse entrepreneurial and academic activities at the campus.
The survey results will compose part of a study regulated by the organizers to promote the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a global concentrator for bitcoin business and research.
The MIT Bitcoin Club, where Dan Elitzer is the president, has also verified to be one of the most active chapters of the College Cryptocurrency Network, a rapidly-growing group of student organizations concentrated on digital currencies.
“As one of the longest-standing CCN chapters, we’ve been in the position of providing assistance to newer and prospective members,” – Elitzer said and added: “Even though a lot of students look to the MIT Bitcoin Club as a prime example of a successful CCN chapter, they should realise that everything we’ve done was built during the past year.”
While Jeremy Rubin said: “Giving students access to cryptocurrencies is analogous to providing them with internet access at the dawn of the internet era.”
The MIT Students already have several options if they want to spend them on campus. School supplies, textbooks and a bundle of MIT-branded products will soon be available for bitcoin purchasers. Besides, the university bookshop began accepting digital currency last month.
Moreover, MIT students has developed Fireflies, the application that allows users to crowdsource goods and services for bitcoin. The app won the ‘Awesome Award’ and a prize of $1,500 at the summer-long MIT BitComp, a contest with the goal to encourage the development of bitcoin-focused applications.
The Fireflies team is concentrated on making its services more easily accessible to MIT students, particularly to complement the planned bitcoin deal.