Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z launch Bitcoin Academy in public housing complex

Twitter co-founder and Block CEO Jack Dorsey is collaborating with American rapper Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) to launch The Bitcoin Academy at Marcy Houses, a public housing complex in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, New York where the rapper grew up. 

The duo announced the initiative to be exclusively available for residents of the Marcy Houses but may be expanded to other neighbourhoods on Thursday. 

The Bitcoin Academy will offer a series of free online and in-person classes scheduled to run between June 22, 2022 until September 7, 2022. 

They will be taught by Black Bitcoin Billionaire Founder Lamar Wilson and Najah J. Roberts who is the  founder of the first African-American and woman-owned crypto exchange and education center in the U.S. - the Crypto Blockchain Plug. Block and Jay-Z's charity staff members from the Shawn Carter Foundation, will help with on-the-ground instructions. Program topics include, 'What is Money?' and 'What is Blockchain?', as well as topics that cover the necessity, vision and utility for Bitcoin. Its participants will receive a smartphone, MiFi hotspot devices and a year-long data plan. 

There will also be a weekend program called Crypto Kids Camp that encourages children aged 5 - 17, which will provide participants with a mobile hotspot and a nominal amount of Bitcoin for hands-on learning. 

Dorsey took to Twitter to proclaim that he was inspired by the success of Bitcoin initiatives that have supported a small-section of African and Central and South American populations. He stated that his goal is ‘to prove that making powerful tools more available to people enables them to build greater independence.’

Prior to this collaboration, last year, Dorsey’s Block (SQ), formerly known as Square acquired Jay-Z’s music streaming service Tidal, which the two hinted at their vision to integrate NFTs into the platform for artists to create and be paid. 

Both Dorsey and Jay-Z are investors in Blockchain startups such as Alchemy and launched an endowment to fund Bitcoin development in Africa and India. 

Photo: Getty