Two MIT students have raised half a million dollars for a project to distribute $100 in bitcoin to every undergraduate student at MIT this fall.... The bulk of funding for the project is being provided by MIT alumni with significant additional support from within the Bitcoin community. The total of over $500,000 already pledged will cover the distribution of bitcoin to all 4,528 undergraduates
I guess I don't understand the "Why?". MIT kids are among the most elite already - why would people donate $100 to each student for that student to spend as he/she wishes? It's an honest question. As a company owner, why would you do this? What would be the benefits you would expect to see? I am clearly missing the "Why?" here. How would you feel if, after this first year, you found that 50% of the kids never did anything with the BTC? Or if 50% of the kids gave their BTC away to another student for nothing?
An interesting thing to see at the end was how many students ever logged in to set up an account, or even check their balance. The funding covers less than $50,000 for anything else - $452,000+ will go directly to the students. That leaves less than $50,000 to cover the administration, the distribution, and the education (a big part). If they get the education part wrong, it will have wasted a huge chunk of the $452,000.
The "people" who are donating are MIT alumni and the Bitcoin community. Both have clear incentives for Bitcoin adoption at MIT.
MIT alumni - A degree from MIT is prestigious because of the amazing work the community does in creating and developing emerging technologies. Alums had the chance to work on similar projects in their day. They want to put the intelligence of the next generation to work. It's an investment in the future.
Bitcoin Community - Bitcoin needs to be trusted in order to be widely adopted. If a prestigious institution is putting a lot of brainpower into developing the infrastructure of the payment network, it well lend credence to the entire scheme and provide a great test case for a USD-Bitcoin integrated economy.
MIT students are smart; they will do something with the Bitcoin, even if they do just sell it for the $100. If you were given $100 would you give it away? I don't think so.
I think Google similarly gives employees some amount of ad spend just to get them more knowledge and buy in of the system. Not unreasonable for large BTC exchanges to want to pay to bring in users like this. May even be more cost effective than ads for bringing in lifetime users worth quite a bit.
Not until they can make one on a cryptocurrency platform like Ethereum. Right now building your own altcoin is too much overhead, it's risky security wise, and you have to put it on an exchange, otherwise people won't be able to trade it.
I guess I don't understand the "Why?". MIT kids are among the most elite already - why would people donate $100 to each student for that student to spend as he/she wishes? It's an honest question. As a company owner, why would you do this? What would be the benefits you would expect to see? I am clearly missing the "Why?" here. How would you feel if, after this first year, you found that 50% of the kids never did anything with the BTC? Or if 50% of the kids gave their BTC away to another student for nothing?
An interesting thing to see at the end was how many students ever logged in to set up an account, or even check their balance. The funding covers less than $50,000 for anything else - $452,000+ will go directly to the students. That leaves less than $50,000 to cover the administration, the distribution, and the education (a big part). If they get the education part wrong, it will have wasted a huge chunk of the $452,000.