Bitcoin Acceptance

This Bitcoin Vending Machine Is Sending Weird Signals About the Future

Trevor Hill | Jul 29, 2016 | 05:00

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MIT’s Media Lab unveiled a vending machine that accepts bitcoin with a quirky twist — it was stocked solely with Soylent.

Also read: Krypton Aims at More Secure Smart Contracts After Ethereum Fork

Soylent and Bitcoin?

A picture of the vending machine was tweeted out by MIT’s own Ethan Zuckerman last night. In it, you can see the machine was mostly empty aside from a few bottles of Soylent. The vending machine even comes equipped with a QR code for people to conveniently scan.

Vending machine at @medialab accepts bitcoin, stocked only with @soylent. Surely this is a metaphor for something. pic.twitter.com/ubgtojcvX0

— Ethan Zuckerman (@EthanZ) July 28, 2016

The machine first came to public attention sometime last year, as a few people tweeted about the possibility of MIT Lab getting a bitcoin-compatible vending machine. Speculation made its way around social media after the director of Media Lab, Joi Ito, first tweeted a picture of a vending machine being brought into the lab.

The speculation became reality after a while, once it was actually confirmed to accept bitcoin. Tierion tweeted about it after getting a tour of the MIT Media Lab building in September of 2015.

DashnDrink: Dash-Powered Vending Machine

Another cryptocurrency-based vending machine, DashnDrink, was recently in the news as well. Exclusively using Dash, this project was funded by the cryptocurrency’s built-in self-governance system.

The Dash-powered vending machine is like MIT Media Lab’s Bitcoin equivalent in that they both accept cryptocurrency. However, unlike the MIT machine, the DashnDrink accepts Dash only.

The DashnDrink project itself was proposed as a way to show off the network efficiency of incentivized “Masternodes.”

This claimed efficiency was proven to be true when the vending machine was shown off at the North American Bitcoin Conference held in Miami in late January, where attendees successfully used the machine to purchase a drink using Dash in a matter of seconds.

About MIT Media Lab

The MIT Media Lab brings together some brilliant minds to work on unique applications of technology. One of these applications happens to be digital currencies, which the media lab has a history with.

In fact, the lab has created an entire project dedicated to researching digital currency and their applications, called “The Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative.” Also, earlier this year, the lab created a “director of digital currency” position and brought in former White House senior advisor, Brian Forde, to fill that vacancy

Although, a bitcoin-powered vending machine that only supplies Soylent may suggest something strange for the future of humanity. The synthesis of MIT, an institution that is world-renowned for being on the forefront of tech innovation, and digital currency seems to suggest exciting times for the bitcoin community.

What do you think of MIT’s Bitcoin-powered vending machine? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: Gizmodo

Images Courtesy of DashnDrink, MIT Media Lab