Block CEO Jack Dorsey and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z are working up to bring Bitcoin and financial education to the rapper’s childhood home. On Thursday, Dorsey announced the start of Bitcoin Academy.
Residents of the Marcy Houses, a public housing project in Brooklyn, will receive free financial education. From June to September, the program will be delivered both in-person and online. It debuts in the midst of a tumultuous year for digital currencies.
Bitcoin has been in freefall for most of this year after rising to nearly $69,000 in November. The largest cryptocurrency has fallen as much as 63 percent from its all-time high. After the collapse of TerraUSD in 2016, more than $200 billion in total market value was lost in a single day.
Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey to provide free crypto education
The Bitcoin Academy says its goal is to “educate and empower the community with knowledge” about how to handle their finances, with a concentration on Bitcoin, which it calls the “future of money” on its website.
The couple started the program to “show that making sophisticated technologies more accessible to people enables them to achieve greater independence,” according to Dorsey because the digital asset “doesn’t have barriers.”
After observing how Bitcoin has become a “vital tool for many in Africa, Central, and South America,” Dorsey and Shawn Corey Carter, also known as “Jay-Z,” said they wanted to teach inhabitants about cryptocurrency.
Dorsey, a long-time Bitcoin supporter, has stated that cryptocurrency will eventually replace banks and provide economic opportunities to the poor globe. Jay-Z has also worked in the music industry.
The rapper invested in Alchemy, a blockchain startup that has powered a number of web3 titans, including the NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Dorsey and Jay-Z have worked together for a long time. Dorsey agreed to pay $300 million for Tidal, the rapper’s music streaming business, in early 2021. As part of the arrangement, Jay-Z was given a seat on Block’s board of directors.