Back to school: Blockchain education network's global Bitcoin airdrop

Baozou Shizhao Comment : "Bitcoin Airdrop" is a Bitcoin airdrop activity initiated by the MIT Bitcoin Club, which is an activity to distribute Bitcoin to every college freshman. Just as people predicted and hoped, this activity has gradually become a regular activity covering colleges and universities around the world. The Blockchain Education Network (BEN) is an organization composed of college students. Its network covers the world. In September, it started this activity in the blockchain center area of ​​​​North America, striving to use college campuses as a breakthrough point to carry out technology popularization activities.

Translation: Annie_Xu

This September, blockchain hubs across North America will kick off the new school year by distributing Bitcoin. The regions participating in this large-scale event include more than a dozen regions in the United States, including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston; as well as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa in Canada. This Bitcoin distribution event has become an annual tradition on college campuses and has its own unique name, "Bitcoin Airdrop."

Students attending the first meeting of their local blockchain club are eligible for this event; they can gain knowledge about Bitcoin from their peers and receive demonstrations on how to create and transfer Bitcoin wallets.

History of “Bitcoin Airdrop”

The MIT Bitcoin Club first organized this Bitcoin airdrop in 2014. At that time, it raised $500,000 in Bitcoin to distribute to the school's freshmen. In 2015, the McGill Cryptocurrency Club at Montreal, Canada, replicated this activity and distributed cryptocurrency donations to freshmen a week after the start of school. Now the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) is promoting this innovative activity in various regional centers.

The origin of “Bitcoin Airdrop”

The airdrop event gives people who don’t know about Bitcoin the opportunity to experience it with their friends and provides a platform to answer questions. If students can easily download wallets, sell Bitcoin, and exchange for legal currency, they will be more willing to accept Bitcoin as a payment method in the future.

Education as a breakthrough

The Blockchain Education Network believes that the blockchain revolution must take place in the form of education. Although almost everyone who first comes into contact with Bitcoin and digital currency has a strong curiosity and desire to learn, most people know very little about it.

Bitcoin and blockchain are technologies with broad socio-economic impacts. This means that the world will view it differently. The Blockchain Education Network adopts a decentralized institutional model and strives to ensure that the teaching materials for each conference are in line with regional characteristics.

A grassroots movement centered on students

The Blockchain Education Network is mainly composed of a group of students aged 18 to 25 who firmly believe in the necessity of this group to participate in blockchain technology experience. The world is moving towards a sharing economy at a high speed, where people can break through distance barriers and join the world's activities; and companies can also get support from a global talent pool. Students will eventually enter this huge workforce group, so they must be familiar with various new technologies.

Every year, the cadres of the university clubs are replaced by new students after graduation. Carrying out airdrop activities when freshmen enter the school can ensure the attention of blockchain technology and ensure that there are enough students to join the blockchain community in the area covered by this activity.

In addition to this regular airdrop, the Blockchain Education Network has planned related activities throughout the fall of 2016 to increase the number of students in the blockchain ecosystem; including the Blockchain Olympics in October and the Blockchain Startup Gauntlet in November. The Blockchain Education Network also holds hackathons for students with a variety of skill sets and sponsors students who want to attend Bitcoin and blockchain conferences.

What it means for the future

It has become a regular event with widespread coverage. The 500 students who received Bitcoin in September may not change the world; but delivering blockchain knowledge to a group of passionate students year after year may bring about a chain reaction of education, and its impact may be far greater than we can imagine.

We firmly believe that the blockchain revolution is not so far away. This technology will develop together with the Internet and will definitely be more in line with our worldview. It took 25 years for the Internet to be invented and accessible to everyone. Therefore, we know that the existing shortcomings of blockchain are opportunities for our generation to display their talents.