Bitcoin OKCoin: MIT establishes blockchain scholarship to promote cryptocurrency application

Consensus 2015 is working with the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative to promote diversity in the cryptocurrency space by offering 50 scholarships to young women and people of color.

A recent CoinDesk study of Bitcoin users found that less than one in ten Bitcoin owners (8.2%) identified themselves as women, with more than 72% saying they were white, suggesting a lack of diversity in the cryptocurrency space.

So the Media Lab’s DCI department is working with local groups like Girls Who Code and the National Center for Women and Information Technology to encourage people to apply for the scholarship.

“We want to discover more young people and diversify the potential of digital currency. The Consensus Fellowship gives young people the opportunity to ask questions, gain unique insights, and meet with leaders in the digital currency movement,” said Brian Ford, DCI Director at the Media Lab.

Earlier, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) released a document submitted by Deutsche Bank.

The document responds to ESMA’s call for digital currencies, citing Deutsche Bank as an example of how blockchain technology can solve complex problems in the world’s financial markets.

Mingxing Xu, founder and CEO of bitcoin startup OKCoin, said that blockchain technology is now being applied to more and more financial institutions, and the government will also use this technology in the management of its own institutions in the future. The establishment of the blockchain scholarship by MIT is a positive feedback to this situation. In the foreseeable future, the application of cryptocurrency will be more extensive and the use space will be more diversified.

OKCoin is currently the leading professional platform in China in terms of Bitcoin trading volume. Even though the Bitcoin market was not hot in 2015, the platform's trading volume still maintained considerable growth.