Bitcoin now accepted at Georgia Tech
06 October, 2014
category: Financial
The Georgia Institute of Technology is now accepting Bitcoin for student dining and shopping on campus.
Georgia Tech’s BuzzCards, can now be topped up with the digital currency at the BuzzCard Center, the university’s card office. The proposed integration is significant as student BuzzCards can be used at some 200 locations around the Atlanta-based campus where students to pay for meals, parking, recreational facilities and tickets for various sporting events.
According to a release from CoinDesk, former students and current Bitcoin executives Tony Gallippi and Stephen Pair will handle payment processing for their alma mater via their Atlanta-based company BitPay.
At the center of Georgia Tech’s Bitcoin rollout, is the Bobby Dodd Stadium, where the Bitcoin logo is already being displayed – a product of a BitPay partnership with the Georgia Tech Athletic Association announced last July.
Now, using any bitcoin wallet, those attending Georgia Tech sporting events can pay for drinks and snacks at two point-of-sale devices located in its student area.
“If all goes well – which we expect it will – it’ll just grow from here,” says Georgia Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski.
Students are, however, likely to use Georgia Tech’s own Jacket Wallet at the checkout. A recently announced custom implementation of Pheeva‘s bitcoin wallet, Jacket Wallet is only available to customers with a campus email address.
Using Bitcoin also carries benefits for users, as the wallet rewards users based on how they promote the currency’s built-in social network, the COG Cooperative.
Stephanie Wargo, vice president of marketing at BitPay, says the company has ambitions to take the program beyond sports venues, and serve a broader student experience.
“We see the student market as a huge potential as these millennials are the executives of the future,” says Wargo. “They have grown up with technology and are quick to embrace new ideas, like Bitcoin.”
This initiative makes Georgia Tech the first university to fully integrate Bitcoin directly into its student payment system. This follows the recent report that Bitcoin was gaining steam at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The MIT Bitcoin Club announced plans to distribute $100 worth of the digital currency to each student on campus. Several bitcoin-related apps developed by students were also awarded cash prizes at a MIT Bitcoin Project competition last month.
