Apr 30, 2014 10:40 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Handing every undergrad student $100 in Bitcoins and watching them go sounds like a plan for disaster at nearly every other institution besides M.I.T. Students at the technical college are used to handling projects beyond their years. They're also the ones who usually dream up such ideas.

"I was laying in bed one night, brainstorming ideas," sophomore computer science major Jeremy Rubin told Venture Beat. Initially, Rubin's plan was to involve only his computer science class, until Dan Elitzer, president of M.I.T.'s Bitcoin Club, suggested he broaden it to the entire campus. That plan is now a reality. In the fall, every undergrad student will start the year with $100 in Bitcoins.

The idea is to create a closed Bitcoin economy (I'm assuming students can't spend their coins on purchases outside the campus or buy more coins from another source; the details are still being worked out, according to Venture Beat) within a community of knowledgeable users, suggesting that a significant portion of the rest of the world is still somewhat naïve when it comes to the electronic money system (why some people, like the near Facebook-inventing Winklevoss twins, have made millions from buying and selling them).

"We're trying to seed an ecosystem and see what emerges," Elitzer said. "That's how startups work."

But where did they get the funding? M.I.T. has 4,529 undergrads, which is $452,900 and mostly chump change for a school like M.I.T. Still, in order to execute their plan, M.I.T. had to adapt local and campus stores to accept Bitcoin. They're also bringing in Bitcoin representatives for an expo on May 3, just to make sure students are as knowledgeable about the currency as they claim.

Half the money was provided by Alexander Morcos, a former student who started his own trading company. The rest was split between about two dozen alumni, according to Venture Beat.

What type of ecosystem will emerge? I'd imagine some students will be very careful in releasing their bitcoins, while others could use them as tantalizing bargaining chips. Likely, an unofficial that soon becomes official contest will emerge tracking the students with the most bitcoins.

"When you step onto campus this fall, all of your classmates are going to have access to bitcoin; what are YOU going to build to give them interesting ways to use it?" Elitzer asked.

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