Members of Marcy Houses, Jay-Z’s childhood community, will be able to take classes at the new Bitcoin Academy.
Jay-Z, Shawn Corey Carter, aka Jay-Z, grew up in Brooklyn’s Marcy Houses neighborhood. The rapper and Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced Thursday that they are giving back to their childhood home by creating the Bitcoin Academie, a program to teach financial literacy.
The Bitcoin Academy will offer a series online and in-person classes that will begin later this month. The Bitcoin Academy will offer a series of online and in-person classes, including “What is Money?”
Marcy Houses members can also participate in the program. Participants will be provided with a mobile hotspot as well as a small amount of Bitcoin to help them learn.
From September to early September, students will be offered instruction twice per week. Students will also receive dinner. Jay-Z and Block will be supported by the Shawn Carter Foundation charity staff.
Jay-Z and Dorsey have announced the program. It will start at Marcy Houses, but could be extended to other neighborhoods on Thursday morning.
These classes will be taught by an educational group, Blockchain Plug, and Black Bitcoin Billionaire. This group aims to introduce Black people into Bitcoin and has previously received a grant form Block.
Jay-Z and Dorsey collaborate again
Jay-Z and Dorsey have collaborated before. He was also the former CEO at Twitter where he advocated a Bitcoin-based future.
In 2021 Dorsey’s Block ( formerly Square), acquired the streaming music service of the rapper catlled Tidal. The pair proposed that Tidal be used as a vehicle to NFT distribution.
Jay-Z and Dorsey are also investors in blockchain startups such as Alchemy. In 2021, an endowment was launched to finance Bitcoin development in Africa, India, and other countries.
Dorsey, like Jay-Z, is funding the new Bitcoin Academy from his own pocket. However, he has also supported crypto-related charitable endeavors at Block. This includes a $5 million fund that is backed by revenue earned from interest on company’s corporate Bitcoin holdings.
