Bitcoin study: Period of exclusivity encourages early adopters
Giving early adopters the first access to new technologies can help diffuse those technologies among the masses. A notable example is Google’s rollout of Gmail: In 2004, about 1,000 select users were given exclusive access and told to invite others. This campaign was so successful that at one point before the email service went mainstream Gmail invites were selling for more than $150 on eBay. But what if early adopters are, in contrast, denied access at the initial stage of a rollout? That could greatly stifle broader diffusion, according to a unique new study by MIT researchers that examines adoption rates of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin among MIT students. In 2014, the MIT Bitcoin Project offered all incoming freshman access to $100 worth of bitcoins. MIT Sloan School of Management professors Christian Catalini and Catherine Tucker saw this as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to study the role of early adopters in spreading technology in...