Principal Investigator Thomas Hardjono
Co-investigators Samuel Madden , Alex 'Sandy' Pentland , M Kaashoek , Nickolai Zeldovich , Harold Abelson , Andrew Lippman
Project Website http://bitcoin.mit.edu/
The MIT Bitcoin Club is run by undergraduate and graduate students interested in projects and ventures related to bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin has the potential to be not just a digital currency, but the future of money. While it is still in the early stages, Bitcoin can be a protocol or platform on which financial and non-financial transactions can be conducted and verified as part of a global public ledger. Bitcoin lies at the intersection of several important academic research areas, including cryptography, distributed computing, graph theory, finance, and economics. The MIT Bitcoin Club seeks to provide forums where Bitcoin-related ideas, projects, programs, events, and businesses can be studied, discussed, and developed. Through club activities, Bitcoin seeks to increase awareness and use of Bitcoin within and beyond the MIT community.
Through the MIT Bitcoin Project, Rubin and Elitzer aim to help MIT continue its long tradition as the preeminent educational institution at the forefront of emerging technologies, and establish MIT as a global hub where Bitcoin-related research, ideas, and ventures are studied, discussed, and developed. 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, as well as infrastructure and informational activities related to the initiative.
The idea for Bitcoin at MIT was announced earlier this year when the MIT Bitcoin Club raised a half a million dollars to give the 4,528 registered fall students $100 each to use as a cryptocurrency seed startup. Awareness to the ecosystem for the digital currencies was the idea of MIT sophomore Jeremy Rubin and first-year MBA student Dan Elitzer who raised the money from alumni and benefactors.
We believe Bitcoin has the potential to be not just a digital currency, but the future of money. While it is still in the early stages, we see Bitcoin as a protocol or platform on which financial and non-financial transactions can be conducted and verified as part of a global public ledger. Bitcoin lies at the intersection of several important academic research areas, including cryptography, distributed computing, graph theory, finance, and economics. The MIT Bitcoin Club seeks to provide forums where Bitcoin-related ideas, projects, programs, events, and businesses can be studied, discussed, and developed. Through club activities, we seek to increase awareness and use of Bitcoin within and beyond the MIT community.