
$10 Of Free Bitcoin For College Students - jessehu
http://blog.coinbase.com/post/85758038492/10-of-free-bitcoin-for-college-students
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Oculus
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](http://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=11m21s)

~~~
battani
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.

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beaner
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.

~~~
tron657
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.

~~~
baby
> 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.

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battani
[https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions](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.

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

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brimtown
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.

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

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selmnoo
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?

~~~
loarake
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.

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catmanjan
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?

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

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krilnon
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).

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amtab
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.

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DanAndersen
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.

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why-el
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.

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

~~~
fakename
ditto

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seangarita
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.

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eswat
> 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…

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

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bendoernberg
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?

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johnwalker
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.

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DCKing
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.

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unclesaamm
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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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privong
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! :)

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brianbreslin
@privong wahoowa indeed! you're an astrophysicist?

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

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

~~~
privong
Cool, I'll do that.

Btw, coinbase seems to work with UVa addresses.

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

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rdl
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.

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

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91edec
Works for University of Birmingham (UK) email addresses. @bham.ac.uk

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

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fakename
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.

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

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explicate
Works for University of Toronto - uses utoronto.ca

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therobot24
@andrew.cmu.edu doesn't work

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arrayjumper
buffalo.edu works :) TY coinbase.

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benguild
@fas.harvard.edu didn't work

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millzlane
Works with jhu.edu thanks!

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

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ToastyMallows
rit.edu email works, thanks Coinbase!

