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Dan Elitzer and Jeremy Rubin rolled out the “MIT Bitcoin Project” in 2014.
Christopher A. Maynor

Jeremy Rubin was a sophomore studying computer science and electrical engineering when he decided that he wanted to give every undergraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology $100 worth of bitcoin

Seven months later – armed with half a million dollars in donations from alumni and bitcoin enthusiasts – Rubin offered to do just that, and 3,108 undergrads took him up on it.

This was back when the world’s most popular cryptocurrency wasn’t quite so popular, trading at around $336. Had all recipients of this free bitcoin let their crypto wallets sit idle, the “MIT Airdrop” collective would have been $44.1 million richer by today’s prices. 

But some students didn’t hold on.

Researchers tracing the project, including Christian Catalini, now co-creator of the Diem stablecoin project initiated by Facebook, say that 1 in 10 cashed out in the first two weeks. By the end of the experiment in 2017, 1 in 4 had cashed out. The experiment creators stopped tracking transactions among the cohort after that.

Van Phu, now a software engineer and co-founder of crypto broker Floating Point Group, is still kicking himself for spending a lot of his bitcoin on sushi.

“One of the worst things and one of the best things at MIT is this restaurant called Thelonious Monkfish,” said Phu. “I spent a lot of my crypto buying sushi.”

Phu wasn’t alone in hemorrhaging his virtual coins at this campus dining hotspot.

Quantitative trader Sam Trabucco, who also took part in the experiment, estimated that half the people he knew spent their crypto spoils on fish. 

“It was the only restaurant in Cambridge that was accepting bitcoin at the time, and it was a pretty popular spot,” he said. The restaurant has since changed its name and retired its bitcoin payment policy.

The MIT experiment

Rubin was halfway through a protracted legal battle with the New Jersey attorney general when he first got the idea for the bitcoin giveaway.

Unlike most 19-year-olds, Rubin was venting to his friends about the fact that state officials had accused him of being a “hardcore, hardened cyber criminal” who was “installing malware on people’s computers.” But Rubin says he had simply launched a bitcoin mining program called Tidbit. The project had just won an innovation award at a local hackathon known as Node Knockout, and Rubin, now CEO of bitcoin R&D lab Judica, was proud of what he had built. 

The episode ended up with Rubin being cleared, but as it was happening, he kept noticing the blank stares from his friends each time he mentioned the word “bitcoin.”

“I thought, ‘This is MIT. I thought everyone was super cutting-edge.’ And I realized that no, it really wasn’t something that was all that widespread at that point,” said Rubin. 

And so the bitcoin experiment was born. 

In late October 2014, Rubin and fellow project leader Dan Elitzer, then an MBA student at Sloan, opened up enrollment. Students who wanted the $100 worth of bitcoin had to complete a few questionnaires and review educational materials. 

Jeremy Rubin touring the NYSE during a 2013 internship.

“We wanted to get bitcoin out in the world more, and we wanted to spread the technology,” said Rubin. “We also wanted to study what it means to distribute a new asset.”

Students wanting to take part also had to set up their own crypto wallet, which at the time was hard enough to discourage participation. Still, in the end, 70% of students ended up jumping through all the hoops.

Phu was among the students who started a side hustle opening up crypto wallets for those who didn’t want to spend the time figuring out how to do it and were willing to yield a percentage of their bitcoin as a fee for services rendered. 

“A lot of the students would pay the other students half of the bitcoin if they would set it up on their behalf,” explained Phu. He says he helped somewhere between 10 and 12 people set up crypto wallets in exchange for a commission paid in bitcoin. It’s somewhat taken the sting out of the fact that he spent $100 worth of bitcoin — worth more than $14,000 today — on two sushi dinners.

Trabucco says that back when he was a student, he didn’t think that much of the project, though he did manage to triple his bitcoin handout playing poker online.

“Half the people I knew actually registered it as an event,” said Trabucco. As far as he was concerned, he thought bitcoin was cool, but “didn’t really think it was going to be the future of finance.” 

But already having a crypto wallet did lower the barrier to entry to the cryptosphere later in life. Trabucco now runs Alameda Research, which manages over $1 billion in digital assets and trades up to $10 billion per day across thousands of products, including all major coins and altcoins, as well as their derivatives.

“I can’t say for sure whether it was the deciding factor, but it certainly could have been, because if I didn’t already have an account, I’m not sure if I would have ended up doing this,” he said. 

Phu, Rubin and Trabucco all declined to share how much they kept and how much crypto they’ve accrued since their days on campus. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts
(Photo: Bloomberg / Getty Images)

Where all the bitcoin went

When CNBC spoke to Catalini, he was taking a walk to break up the 12 to 14 hours a day he spends on Zoom working. 

Among Catalini’s lasting takeaways is the fact that bitcoin simply didn’t work as a method of payment on campus. 

“Even at the time, the technology was quite user unfriendly,” he said. “Even within a pretty tech-savvy community such as MIT, it was kind of surprising to see how much work it really was to use bitcoin at the time.”

But that inability to spend was probably for the best.

“What was fascinating is that in a sense, the MIT students got it right. The vast majority held on to their bitcoin as an investment. And maybe it sounds obvious given the price has appreciated so dramatically. But I think in 2014, it wasn’t clear at all that something that was worth at the time, I think $250, would be worth more than that,” he said.

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Xiaomi shares see biggest drop since April after fatal EV crash sparks safety concerns

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Xiaomi shares see biggest drop since April after fatal EV crash sparks safety concerns

A Xiaomi electric car SU7 in a store in Yichang, Hubei Province, China on July 19, 2025.

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi saw its shares fall over 5% on Monday, following reports that the doors of one of its electric vehicles failed to open after a fiery crash in China that left one person dead.

The stock slid as much as 8.7% in Hong Kong, marking its steepest drop since April, before paring losses after images and video of a burning Xiaomi SU7 sedan in Chengdu circulated on Chinese social media.

Video and eyewitness accounts showed bystanders trying but failing to open the doors of the burning car to rescue an occupant. Personnel at the scene eventually used a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze, local reports said.

Chengdu police said the crash occurred after the SU7 collided with another sedan, killing a 31-year-old male driver who was suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol.

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Xiaomi shares

Xiaomi, which manufactures consumer electronics, software and electric vehicles, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The latest incident follows a fatal SU7 crash earlier this year that raised questions about the vehicle’s smart driving features and sent Xiaomi’s shares tumbling.

The crash could also intensify scrutiny on electronic door handles, a design popularized by Tesla and now common in modern EVs. 

Unlike mechanical models, electronic door handles rely on sensors and electricity and may fail during a fire or power outage.

China is considering a ban on such electric door handles to address safety risks linked to the feature, state-backed media reported in late September.

Meanwhile, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation into about 174,000 Tesla Model Y vehicles after reports of door handle failures.

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Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia in ‘highly exceptional’ move

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Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia in 'highly exceptional' move

A close-up view of the Nexperia plant sign in Newport, Wales on April 1, 2022.

Matthew Horwood | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The Dutch government has taken control of Nexperia, a Chinese-owned semiconductor maker based in the Netherlands, in an extraordinary move to ensure a sufficient supply of its chips remains available in Europe amid rising global trade tensions.

Nexperia, a subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology, specializes in the high-volume production of chips used in automotive, consumer electronics and other industries, making it vital for maintaining Europe’s technological supply chains. 

On Sunday evening, the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs revealed that it had invoked the “Goods Availability Act” on the company in September in order “to prevent a situation in which the goods produced by Nexperia (finished and semi-finished products) would become unavailable in an emergency.”

Following the announcement from the Hague, Wingtech plunged its maximum daily limit of 10% on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The Goods Availability Act allows the Hague to intervene in private companies to ensure the availability of critical goods in preparation for emergency situations, and its use comes amid escalations in the U.S.-China trade war.

The government statement said the “highly exceptional” move had been made after the ministry had observed “recent and acute signals of serious governance shortcomings and actions” within Nexperia.

“These signals posed a threat to the continuity and safeguarding on Dutch and European soil of crucial technological knowledge and capabilities. Losing these capabilities could pose a risk to Dutch and European economic security,” it said, identifying automotives as particularly vulnerable.

Governance changes

In a corporate filing dated Oct.13, lodged with the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Wingtech confirmed Nexperia was under temporary external management and had been asked to suspend changes to the company’s assets, business or personnel for up to a year, according to a Google translation.

Wingtech chairman Zhang Xuezheng had been immediately suspended from his roles as executive director of Nexperia Holdings and non-executive director of Nexperia after the ministerial order, according to the filing.

The filing added that Nexperia’s daily operations will continue, with the impact of the measures not yet quantifiable.

“The Dutch government’s decision to freeze Nexperia’s global operations under the pretext of ‘national security’ constitutes excessive intervention driven by geopolitical bias, rather than a fact-based risk assessment,” Wingtech said in a deleted WeChat post, which was archived and translated by Chinese policy blog Pekingnology.

It added that since it acquired Nexperia in 2019, Wingtech “has strictly abided by the laws and regulations of all jurisdictions where it operates, maintaining transparent operations and sound governance,” and employs “thousands of local staff” through R&D and manufacturing sites in the Netherlands, Germany and Britain.

A spokesperson from Nexperia told CNBC that the company had no further comments, but that it “complies with all existing laws and regulations, export controls and sanctions regimes,” and remained in regular contact with relevant authorities.

The Netherlands’ move comes after Beijing tightened its restrictions on the export of rare earth elements and magnets Thursday, which could impact Europe’s automotive industry. 

The move could also further strain trade relations between China and the Netherlands, following years of restrictions on Dutch company ASML’s exports of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China.

In 2023, the Netherlands had also investigated Nexperia’s proposed acquisition of chip firm startup Nowi, though the deal was later approved.

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Navan sets price range for IPO, expects market cap of up to $6.5 billion

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Navan sets price range for IPO, expects market cap of up to .5 billion

FILE PHOTO: Ariel Cohen during a panel at DLD Munich Conference 2020, Europe’s big innovation conference, Alte Kongresshalle, Munich.

Picture Alliance for DLD | Hubert Burda Media | AP

Navan, a developer of corporate travel and expense software, expects its market cap to be as high as $6.5 billion in its IPO, according to an updated regulatory filing on Friday.

The company said it anticipates selling shares at $24 to $26 each. Its valuation in that range would be about $3 billion less than where private investors valued Navan in 2022, when the company announced a $300 million funding round.

CoreWeave, Circle and Figma have led a resurgence in tech IPOs in 2025 after a drought that lasted about three years. Navan filed its original prospectus on Sept. 19, with plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “NAVN.”

Last week, the U.S. government entered a shutdown that has substantially reduced operations inside of agencies including the SEC. In August, the agency said its electronic filing system, EDGAR, “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”

Cerebras, which makes artificial intelligence chips, withdrew its registration for an IPO days after the shutdown began.

Navan CEO Ariel Cohen and technology chief Ilan Twig started the company under the name TripActions in 2015. It’s based in Palo Alto, California, and had around 3,400 employees at the end of July.

For the July quarter, Navan recorded a $38.6 million net loss on $172 million in revenue, which was up about 29% year over year. Competitors include Expensify, Oracle and SAP. Expensify stock closed at $1.64on Friday, down from its $27 IPO price in 2021.

Navan ranked 39th on CNBC’s 2025 Disruptor 50 list, after also appearing in 2024.

WATCH: Brex CEO on Navan partnership

We developed 'best in class' enterprise travel expense solution, says Brex CEO on Navan partnership

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