University of British Columbia Bitcoin Club Information

Willson Cross, an economics student from the University of British Columbia, founded the UBC Bitcoin Club because he wanted to educate his fellow UBC students and friends about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. 

Cross is just a 21-year-old student and now president of the new UBC Bitcoin Club which just got established in September at the Vancouver Campus of the University of British Columbia. 

The third-year economics student said during an interview with the Georgia Straight that, “Bitcoin doesn’t necessarily have the potential to be just a virtual currency, but we also believe it has the potential to be the future of finance.”

The club has 15 members so far and they are following the footsteps of B.C. Institute of Technology and Simon Fraser University, which already have their very own Bitcoin clubs. It is the first ever Canadian higher education institute that started accepting Bitcoin as donations. 

As mentioned earlier, the primary goal of the UBC Bitcoin Club is to educate UBC students about cryptocurrencies, e.g. how to buy bitcoin in Canada or what are the best cryptocurrency exchanges available for Canadians.

According to Cross, his plans with the club include mentorship programs to help connect its members with digital currency professionals in the crypto industry; merchant adoption which means that he wants to initiate the adoption of Bitcoin as a mode of payment by merchants in their campus; a small business incubator to start providing seed capital to Bitcoin businesses in their campus; and cryptocurrency literacy events to provide education and engagement to those interested, all funded by private money and their alumni.

 

Cross is also hoping for the University of British Columbia to eventually accept Bitcoin as a form of payment for their tuition fees and bookstore sales. However, a representative of the UBC stated that the university is not planning to accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment for their tuition or other services.