MIT students Jeremy Rubin and Dan Elitzer launched the Bitcoin Project initiative in April 2014, offered all undergraduate students on Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus $100 worth of Bitcoin.
They created MIT BitComp competition for developing innovative bitcoin-related apps with teams participating in 3 rounds for winning up to $15,000 in total prizes (at that time).
Jeremy and Dan collected $500,000 from bitcoin enthusiasts donations to fund their project and 3108 undergrads participated in this ''MIT Airdrop'' while Biutcoin price was around $336.
Students had to fill out long questionnaires, go some educational work and set up a Bitcoin wallet, than they could alter exchange it for something of value like cash.
Experiment ended in 2017 and tracing of transactions showed that 1 in 4 people cashed out their Bitcoin, some people even spent Bitcoin on two sushi dinners in restaurant Thelonious Monkfish that accepted BTC ,
and luckiest MIT students was one who forgot about their Bitcoin for few years.
Archived mitbitcoinproject website:
https://archive.is/gFcJiMIT Spectrum post about Bitcoin Project Experiment from December 2014:
https://spectrum.mit.edu/continuum/mits-bitcoin-experiment-is-underway/CNBC news report about MIT Bitcoin Project from August 14, 2021:
“A lot of the students would pay the other students half of the bitcoin if they would set it up on their behalf,” explained Phu. He says he helped somewhere between 10 and 12 people set up crypto wallets in exchange for a commission paid in bitcoin. It’s somewhat taken the sting out of the fact that he spent $100 worth of bitcoin — worth more than $14,000 today — on two sushi dinners.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/14/mit-student-gave-away-100-worth-of-bitcoin-to-all-undergrads-in-2014.htmlBloomberg news report about MIT Bitcoin Project from June 4, 2021
“Most of us thought it was a bit of a joke.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-04/bitcoin-btc-mit-experiment-nets-13-000-gain-for-students-who-held-on