Every incoming MIT undergrad will get a little bit of bitcoin to play around with upon entering the university this fall. The idea is to create a community of virtual currency users who can experiment with the nuances of this new type of economy on a small scale. The project's goal is to spur both academic and entrepreneurial activity in a tech-savvy group of individuals.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Bitcoin Club plans to distribute US$100 worth of bitcoin to each of its 4,528 incoming undergraduates this fall, in an attempt to create an ecosystem for digital currencies at the institution.

Club founder and president Dan Elitzer and sophomore Jeremy Rubin have raised more than $500,000 for the MIT Bitcoin Project from MIT alumni, as well as the Bitcoin community.

Neither Rubin nor Elitzer has any connection to Bitcoin in any way. "Our investment is simply in our time, and belief in the benefits cryptocurrencies could bring to society," Rubin told the E-Commerce Times.

They will work with professors and researchers across MIT to study how students will use the bitcoins they receive. The project will seek to spur academic and entrepreneurial activity within MIT in the field of virtual currency.

"We think Bitcoin and [other] cryptocurrencies have a place on the global stage, and MIT is the institute to show the world what can be done," Rubin said.

"The MIT project will raise the profile of Bitcoin in an already digitally informed MIT student class," Jeffrey Garzik, Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist at BitPay. "Bitcoin is a natural fit for teenagers who have for years been connecting with their peers via smartphone and tablet."

Although several other cryptocurrencies are available, Bitcoin was selected because "we ... think that the network effects of Bitcoin are critical," Rubin said.

Further, research currently is being conducted on how to augment the features of other current cryptocurrencies into Bitcoin directly, "as they are mostly modifications into the core Bitcoin code, with a few notable exceptions," he pointed out.

Alternate cryptocurrencies "are interesting," BitPay's Garzik remarked. "The barrier to entry is low ... . Many alt-coin creators do not fully understand the technology they are using, and do not treat their software as mission-critical financial software securing millions of dollars."

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MIT Goes Bitcoin-Wild