“Giving students access to cryptocurrencies is analogous to providing them with internet access at the dawn of the internet era,” says MIT computer science sophomore Jeremy Rubin.

With the help of the Bitcoin community and some generous MIT alums, two MIT students have raised over a half a million dollars in order to gift incoming undergrads with a sizable amount of bitcoin.

The money already raised will allow the MIT Bitcoin Club to give all 4,528 freshman $100 worth of the cryptocurrency.

Neither Rubin or Dan Elitzer, the two responsible for the initiative, know how each student will spend his/her bitcoin, but the fact that it’s out there will hopefully spur innovation.

“We decided to announce this project now to give students lead time. We want to issue a challenge to some of the brightest technical minds of a generation: ‘When you step onto campus this fall, all of your classmates are going to have access to bitcoin; what are YOU going to build to give them interesting ways to use it?’” said Elitzer.

https://twitter.com/IHaveBitcoins/status/461099441119059968

As you would probably expect, this is the first such program of its type in the nation.

The MIT Bitcoin Club’s stated mission is to “provide forums where Bitcoin-related ideas, projects, programs, events, and businesses can be studied, discussed, and developed.”

“We believe Bitcoin has the potential to be not just a digital currency, but the future of money,” says the club.

Image via Wikimedia Commons