$10 Of Free Bitcoin For College Students | Hacker News Reader

$10 Of Free Bitcoin For College Students

blog.coinbase.com

76 pointsjessehu83 comments

This reminds me of a very similar campaign Paypal did to help jumpstart the online payments market. Paypal offered $20 to anyone for opening an account or referring a new user[1]. This served to help rapidly grow a market of Paypal users before one existed.

1 (I highly recommend watching the full conversation as it's immensely interesting) - http://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=11m21s

The difference being that most of these students will receive the free bitcoin and hold, hoping they appreciate in value, instead of transacting and contributing to the network effect.

Is this myth not dead yet? People spend bitcoin and want to spend it. There is also speculation and hoarding, but no universal law that says you can't do both.

$10 isn't even much to hoard. If the price goes up 10x that's still just $100. This is more like, "Oh, you got our drinks, I'll pay you back in btc!" kind of money.

How and when did hoarding bitcoin become a myth? Last I checked number of transactions per day was decreasing. And the C2C aspect you describe is unlikely to take off given the ease of cash or tools like Venmo, and lack of availability of bitcoin apps on iOS.

The myth here is that "people want to spend bitcoin." Just take a look at the bitcoin transaction volume merchants are seeing beyond the first few days.

> Last I checked number of transactions per day was decreasing.

Are you looking day to day trends? Because if you step back a little you'll see that transactions have done nothing but increase.

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions

We see a decrease since December and otherwise flatlining. And this includes the trading volume that happens on the exchanges which has increased.

Only if you compare it to the peak of December, otherwise it's clearly rising.

My point was not that hoarding is a myth - my point was that "people will not spend bitcoin, because they will only hoard it" is a myth.

Have you actually talked to people who own bitcoin? They want places to spend it.

> Just take a look at the bitcoin transaction volume merchants are seeing beyond the first few days.

This doesn't really mean anything. First-day enthusiasim can't be held as representative of the greater trend. The greater trend being that more merchants are accepting bitcoin over time, and more bitcoin is being spent on real things.

It's not a myth because it's true. There are so many people holding on to it as investments that it's not even funny. There are people making so much money off of bitcoin it's ridiculous.

I was saying that the myth is that people don't want to spend bitcoin.

Has Coinbase posted a list of the "top 500" colleges that are supported, or are we left to guess? I signed up a few minutes ago and haven't seen anything yet.

Edit: Still not showing up. Kinda scummy to advertise this to college students and not follow through, especially in the heat of finals week.

Same here, with an @uw.edu e-mail address.

@seas.upenn.edu didn't seem to work.

@umail.ucsb.edu didn't work either but I already have a Coinbase account that I registered from this IP address, maybe it is something to do with that?

Anyone from Coinbase confirm this?

@cs.ucsb.edu doesn't work either. I've never used Coinbase before in my life.

Yep same for @sas.upenn.edu

Same, sent them an email though.

Same thing with my @uw.edu email address.

McGill University doesn't use an .edu domain, I tried signing up in case they included it anyway but got nothing.

That's interesting... (and a little too bad for you, since a lot of systems will give you student discounts and all just for the .edu email address), how come it is that way? Is that a thing with a lot of Canadian universities, or?

I’m not aware of a Canadian university with a .edu. Most use .ca.

Yeah it's a shame. The wiki page for ".edu" specifies "Since 2001, new registrants to the domain have been required to be United States-affiliated institutions of higher education, though before then non-U.S.-affiliated—and even non-educational institutions—registered, with some retaining their registrations to the present."

So it definitely has a US bias.

I used my email@ulaval.ca (Laval University in Quebec city, Quebec, Canada) and it worked !

I just tried my @ufl.edu address and it didn't work. I would assume my university is large enough to be included.

Also, as a side note, they sent me an email asking me to subscribe to their blog before they sent a verification email. Once I subscribed to their blog then I realized it was not the same as user verification, lol.

My friend at Orange Coast College just signed up with her .edu email address and it didn't work. I think its a scam to get people's email addresses. I don't think I'll ever refer anyone to Coinbase again now and I'm a previously happy customer.

What's more likely, coinbase is running a 'scam' or that they don't consider Orange Coast College one of the top 500 universities worldwide?

works with mtu.edu

ANU student here, can confirm it works with .edu.au emails

How do they stop people taking advantage of the ability to create an arbitrary amount of email accounts?

If they see a lot from an insecure uni I'd assume they would take action.

It seems like they're detecting browser user agent (and possibly IP)

I'm not going to abuse this myself, but at MIT you can create seemingly-unlimited @mit.edu email addresses using Moira.

Getting a bunch of fresh IPs might be trickier, but you could probably wander around different WiFi access points, use the CSAIL OpenStack installation, or maybe just renew a DHCP lease a bunch.

User-agents a easy to find and change with a browser extension (or scripting).

Does not work with uts.edu.au address.

Does not work with utas.edu.au either.

Failed, it seems, to work on .uqconnect.edu.au addresses. I don't know if you have to use .uq.edu.au or if that wouldn't also work.

Sucks, I was looking forward to this.

This is a great idea, just got mine! It worked for Paypal back in the day to boost signups. Hopefully between this and the MIT program we'll see more interesting transactions in BTC as opposed to people holding it as a lottery ticket.

I tried this with my purdue.edu email a few days ago and it didn't work at all. I think it was because I used a computer in an on-campus lab to sign up. When emailing Coinbase support I got these responses that, while prompt, were unhelpful in actually fixing the issue:

>My apologies for the trouble! In some cases, we may not be able to credit this promotional bonus to new accounts. If we are able to credit it to your account, it will be displayed on the Transactions page immediately after signup.

>If another user used the same device to redeem the .edu promotional bonus, we unfortunately would not be able to credit it to your account at this time.

Anyone from coinbase here? Are there plans for international universities? Mine does not use a .edu but rather a country specific one. Would love to hit all students with this but I need to know first that they would be accepted.

I signed up with my @berkeley.edu email, and the coins haven't showed up yet.

ditto

This is a great initiative on Coinbase's part. Will definitely get a lot of adopters because the free money will incentivize the use and then the experience of using Bitcoin should hold on to the new users.

> This offer is good for select .edu domains only. We have tried to include the top 500 universities worldwide (this is not U.S. focused).

I’m not aware of a university outside of the US that uses a .edu TLD…

When I was at university similar comments were made by other organisations and they allowed my .edu.au

However upon reading the first thing I considered was "who are the top 500". It might be easier if they provided a list.

In New Zealand it's .ac.nz. We're screwed whenever there's .edu sales/offers.

Fellow kiwi here. Most NZ universities are included.

I'm an engineer at Coinbase. There are definitely many non-US domains included (e.g. .ac.CCTLD and .edu.CCTLD).

Why not publish the list? Surely it's not worth frustrating students from hundreds of colleges who try to take advantage of the offer and can't?

Not publishing the list makes you look like you are harvesting email addresses. Just publish it.

http://monash.edu is based in Australia. It also apparently has campuses in Malaysia, South Africa, India, Italy and China.

There's also the embarrassingly bad http://australia.edu/, which is not a university and even has public signup for @australia.edu emails. Perhaps that will allow access to this promotion.

Here in the Netherlands the University of Tilburg has a .edu: http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/

The website having an .edu is one thing, but that doesn't give you a usable .edu email address.

I just registered with my @tilburguniversity.edu address but sadly I don't see any indication that it's on the list.

>We have tried to include the top 500 universities worldwide

Eh, doesn't Coinbase operate only in the US?

Their wallet service can be used by anyone, anywhere. If you want to use their brokerage service to buy bitcoins, you need a U.S. bank account.

Hmm. I signed up a few minutes ago with my university email, but didn't get anything. Does it take a while?

Edit: Aha. It doesn't work for everyone, even within the top 500.

Did not work for University of Twente emails (utwente.nl). Please know that all Dutch public universities are firmly within the top 500 of universities worldwide (whichever ranking you pick) but don't have .edu email addresses!

It's a shame, because I know a lot of people who would like to experiment with Bitcoins.

This didn't work for my Swarthmore email address. I assume liberal arts colleges weren't included on the list of top "universities"?

Edit: And if someone from Coinbase is reading this, can we get added? I have friends who would be interested too.

Not working for ox.ac.uk addresses (name@kellogg.ox.ac.uk)

It looks like their list extends beyond .edu domains. I just registered with an @uwaterloo.ca email and received 0.02266 BTC.

I hope they continue with the running totals for each university. It's interesting to see adoption and adoption rates.

I'm not sure what qualifies top 500 college for them. So far from Brandeis and UCSB neither have gotten the $10.

What about my @etu.u-bordeaux.fr ? I'd gladly tell the other students in my cryptography master.

woohoo works for NYU! I just spread it around a bunch of social media outlets to get the word out :)

This sounds great but I can't take advantage in Canada because we don't use .edu emails.

I wonder if it works for my alumni.virginia.edu email? though i already have a coinbase account.

It doesn't appear to work with a regular viginia.edu email (at least not if the BTC are supposed to be deposited immediately upon account confirmation).

But, Wahoowa! :)

@privong wahoowa indeed! you're an astrophysicist?

Yes, I'm finishing my PhD right now in the astronomy dept at UVa (studying galaxy mergers), then moving on to do a postdoc.

a friend of mine is working in the physics dept patrick hopkins, look him up, nice dude.

Cool, I'll do that.

Btw, coinbase seems to work with UVa addresses.

Well, now I have a coin base account but not $10. Looks like UC Davis email doesn't work.

I signed up with a @mit.edu and it doesn't appear to be credited, so I think maybe they've used up all the money in the promotional account.

I chatted with support and they said to email their support.

Works for University of Birmingham (UK) email addresses. @bham.ac.uk

Thanks, didn't think I'd see another UoB student here!

they might be checking ip addresses. i succeeded with the first edu email i tried, nada for the second. both schools are listed on their site.

worked from my uvic.ca address. 0.02229 BTC. thanks!

Works for University of Toronto - uses utoronto.ca

@andrew.cmu.edu doesn't work

buffalo.edu works :) TY coinbase.

@fas.harvard.edu didn't work

Works with jhu.edu thanks!

So glad some .edu sites allow creating mailing lists at top level, like @mit.edu :)

rit.edu email works, thanks Coinbase!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com