This. Is. NYU.
Last week, NYU junior Jon Kirsh, the social chair of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity, paid his dues via Bitcoin.
Kirsh considered his payment a sort of experiment for the future. Not only does he encourage other brothers to start using it to pay their dues, but he also wants the fraternity to start saving their Bitcoins so they can turn a profit in the future. “If I had my way we’d be keeping some of the money. We’d watch it grow and make some money, especially now that it’s really cheap,” he said.
And it sounds like the fraternity is going to heed to some of Kirsh’s advice. Though he and his brothers who also have Bitcoin accounts (though they chose not to use it to pay their dues) bought their Bitcoins with cash, some are considering trying out mining — a way of uncovering new Bitcoins by solving complex formulas online.
Kirsh was adamant that Phi Kappa Sigma wouldn’t spend its Bitcoins like so many others have been spent—on the Silk Road, buying drugs—even though that is where your mind immediately goes when you read “fraternity” and “untraceable digital currency.”
Kirsh quickly rejected the idea that his fraternity would be using it criminally, stating that raw cash is still the best way of making illegal transactions because it is completely untraceable.
“The currency that’s used most for cartels and for drug money and money laundering is the dollar,” he told NYU Local. “And that’s why people in Washington are starting to realize [Bitcoin] is a good alternative to the dollar because Bitcoin is digital cash, but on top of that it has a public ledger system so any transaction that is made can be seen on a public level by anyone,” he said.
Are you, like Kirsh, in a fraternity? Do you want your fraternity president to let you pay your dues in Bitcoin? All it takes is a six-hour conversation on currency, open source software, and Ayn Rand and you’re on the way!