MIT to Host Second Bitcoin Conference in March

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is set to hold its second industry event in March.

The MIT Bitcoin Expo

will be held over two days on 7th and 8th March, featuring a number of notable speakers from the digital currency ecosystem. The event comes less than a year after the first conference took place in May of 2014.

The event will include speakers such as Circle Internet Financial founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire, Bitcoin Foundation chief scientist Gavin Andresen, Chain founder Adam Ludwin and Blockstream co-founder Matt Corallo, among others.

Jinglan Wang, president of the Wellesley Bitcoin Club and the director of the MIT Bitcoin Expo, said that, compared to last year’s more introductory conference, the 2015 gathering is aimed at facilitating more in-depth conversation between local developers and the broader bitcoin industry.

Wang told CoinDesk:

The full list of planned speakers can be found here.

MIT and the surrounding Boston area is home to a growing bitcoin ecosystem, one propelled forward by the distribution of $100 in bitcoin to undergraduates beginning in October.

The giveaway was organized by the MIT Bitcoin Project, which sponsored a bitcoin app development contest last summer.

Jonathan Harvey-Buschel, president of the MIT Bitcoin Club, said that the event gives local developers an opportunity to learn how the industry has changed in the past year and “foreshadow the developments to come”.

The idea of bitcoin, according to Harvey-Buschel, is spreading through word of mouth, even by those who aren't actively involved in the university's cryptocurrency organizations.

"Students are finding existing services to use their bitcoin on, as well as creating their own," he said. "In fact, ordering food online via Foodler using bitcoin was something I had heard about from a student outside of the club, after the airdrop."

MIT image via Marcio Jose Bastos Silva / Shutterstock