Summer Camp For Children Includes Classes on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies (nbcnews.com) 47
A Los Angeles summer camp is offering children as young as 5 "a crash course in all things crypto," reports NBC News:
In a sign of the bubbling enthusiasm for digital currencies, the Crypto Kids Camp began Monday in a warehouse in a busy port district. Over five days, the camp combines activities that would be common at any summer camp with a crash course in how to think about, buy and even mine bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies... The camp is part of a trend toward young adults and even children becoming immersed in cryptocurrency through online trading exchanges, school clubs, social media and other outlets. In Georgia, state lawmakers this year considered a bill to require high school students to take a course on personal finance including cryptocurrency...
Children attend the camp for a one-week session where each day they learn about a different emerging technology. Camp founder Najah Roberts has an acronym, BEASTMODE, to keep track of the breadth of material they cover: Blockchain, Evolution of money, Artificial intelligence, Security (cyber), Technology (virtual reality), Mining and machine learning, Online gaming, Drones and Engineering.
Campers this week included children from as far away as Texas and New Jersey, staying with parents in hotel rooms, she said. There's no minimum age to buy or hold an online token such as bitcoin, just as there isn't a minimum age to hold U.S. dollars and cents. Many cryptocurrency exchanges have a minimum age in their terms of service, often 18 years old, and enforce the requirement through banking-style know-your-customer rules, but not all exchanges do....
Eventually they want to encourage public schools to adopt similar programs, not just in Los Angeles but also nationwide. "We want to get it set up to the point where it's in each city," she said.
One 18-year-old said the camp taught them how to build a mining machine from scratch that helped them make $200.
Children attend the camp for a one-week session where each day they learn about a different emerging technology. Camp founder Najah Roberts has an acronym, BEASTMODE, to keep track of the breadth of material they cover: Blockchain, Evolution of money, Artificial intelligence, Security (cyber), Technology (virtual reality), Mining and machine learning, Online gaming, Drones and Engineering.
Campers this week included children from as far away as Texas and New Jersey, staying with parents in hotel rooms, she said. There's no minimum age to buy or hold an online token such as bitcoin, just as there isn't a minimum age to hold U.S. dollars and cents. Many cryptocurrency exchanges have a minimum age in their terms of service, often 18 years old, and enforce the requirement through banking-style know-your-customer rules, but not all exchanges do....
Eventually they want to encourage public schools to adopt similar programs, not just in Los Angeles but also nationwide. "We want to get it set up to the point where it's in each city," she said.
One 18-year-old said the camp taught them how to build a mining machine from scratch that helped them make $200.
A camp for useful skills... (Score:2)
is the camp that isn't this one.
Re: (Score:1)
May as well teach 'em how to light forest fires and melt the permafrost
r/gatekeeping (Score:1)
"Bow to me and my superior biases!"
Re: (Score:2)
is the camp that isn't this one.
The camp with the difference, never mind the weather!
Re: A camp for useful skills... (Score:1)
In a sign of the bubbling enthusiasm for digital currencies
More likely a sign that we're past "peak crypto."
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. Sometimes, they DO ring a bell at the top.
Re: (Score:2)
"is the camp that isn't this one."
You prefer the one who has creationism 101?
Re: (Score:2)
There a bad of lots of idea and none of them should have camps.
When I was a kid ... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Greater fool (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Greater fool [hath no wraith like a Bitcoin] (Score:2)
Best of the early posts that was probably intended as an FP, but you thought a bit too much and lost the race. However, I still think you're a bit off the mark. Completely tapped out? No, there is no shortage of adult suckers to tap or to divert to cryptocurrency from other scams.
I am still hoping for a funny comparison to the religious camps they use to twist young minds around various pet gawds before the kids learn to think critically. Much easier to pretzel-ize their minds when they're young and gullibl
Re: (Score:2)
"Completely tapped out?"
I tend to agree. Just the other day there was talk of how India was a new hotbed of cryto-speculation with people converting their gold savings.
So internationally there's probably still a fair amount of room. Maybe when that runs out things will get somewhat nasty.
Orphans go to camp for free (Score:2)
They get training for work in the Stygian heat of the Bitcoin mines: tiny hands tracing rat-bittten segments of Ethernet, replacing RAID volumes that have died, swapping in fresh ASICs when needed, pouring icewater on the older kids who are shoveling coal into the boiler ovens next to the generator. Fun for all.
Should be illegal (Score:2)
What would you say to a camp that takes children to casinos and teaches them to work slot machines, roulette, blackjack?
This is education in gambling token and gambling, disgusting.
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent up. Still lacks the religious comparison, however...
Re: (Score:2)
What would you say to a camp that teaches kids economics and different theories of investing such as value, momentum, etc? What would you say to a camp that teaches kids about startups and IPO's? One could make the case that those, too, are encouraging speculation and therefore should be illegal. Here is an idea. Let the parents decide. Sure some parents are going to fuck up their kids by teaching them hogwash. But it has always been that way anyway.
Re: (Score:1)
We have classes in economics for that, didn't you have one? We even learned in school that (at that time) 7 of 8 business ventures failed. Here's an idea, let's not let bad parents harm their kids as much.
Re: (Score:2)
What nonsense you spew, many things other than gold have been money in the past to ancient times, and are in the present. Hell look at the price of gold over the last year, taking a shit twice and deflating now. Gold a poor investment or store of value, gold bug.
Re: (Score:2)
>What would you say to a camp that takes children to casinos and teaches them to work slot machines, roulette, blackjack?
If it got over the principles of Baysean inference and probability distributions, both relevant to gambling, I would say it's money well spent.
Re: (Score:2)
Crypto (Score:2)
The comments on every crypto story here boil down to MAKE CRYPTO ILLEGAL. Which is hilarious coming from "Information wants to be free" crowd.
Re:Crypto [hath no wraith like a Bitcoin scorned] (Score:2)
You can't outlaw stupidity, but at least you can try to educate around it.
Which is the opposite of what this camp is doing. There are LOTS of good things we can do with computers. And this is not one of them.
So I'll throw in one of my crazed solution approaches? But sideways this time. Is one of you a skilled graphic artist willing to do some mockups of smartphone displays? I'd be willing to invest some reasonable amount of actual bucks in making some ideas easier to understand. What's clear in my mind is t
Re: (Score:2)
Some Accounting details please. (Score:2)
One 18-year-old said the camp taught them how to build a mining machine from scratch that helped them make $200.
Was that before or after accounting for the cost of the hardware, Internet connection and electricity (system + HVAC) to mine that?
Re: Some Accounting details please. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
How the fuck should he know - you expect an 18-year old to do math??
Sorry, my bad... :-)
Better to focus on the basics (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of these technologies weren't around when these kids were born, and many won't be around by the time they're old enough to enter the workforce. What's the point in teaching someone a specific AI/ML framework if they're not equipped with basic skills in linear algebra and multivariate calculus to actually figure out how the underlying models work and how to debug/improve them? I'm all for having resources that allow people to catch up with the current state of the art in whatever it is they're interested in, but things with such a short timeframe like this are better aimed at people already in the workforce aiming to diversify their skillset and seek new career opportunities than they are at kids, who are missing far more of the foundations and transferable skills that will continue to apply regardless of the technology of the week when they're ready to start working.
Re: (Score:2)
>What's the point in teaching someone a specific AI/ML framework if they're not equipped with basic skills in linear algebra and multivariate calculus to actually figure out how the underlying models work and how to debug/improve them?
To spark an interest that grows into something better over time.
Re: (Score:1)
Stock market tips from the elevator boy, 1929 (Score:3, Insightful)
Childs needed to implement Crypto exchanges (Score:2)
The allure of Crypto (Score:2)
Crypto is popular with the current generation because it's the " magic fix " to the reality of adulthood many of us are already all too familiar with.
The daily slog through traffic to become an underpaid ( and underappreciated ) 8-5 cubicle warrior for the rest of your f*cking life doing a job you loathe because it pays the bills.
Regardless of how silly the concept is, I wish I had jumped down the rabbit hole when BitCoin first became a thing.
If I had, perhaps I wouldn't be sitting here doing the math to se
Child abuse (Score:2)
For fuck's sake teach them some useful life skills or at least something fun, not waste their time on useless shit like this!
If they take it seriously (Score:2)
The children will understand it after the first 30 minutes, then start wondering if anybody found a way around the obvious flaws, then when they find out that nobody did, they will wonder why anybody takes that seriously.
However my guess is that they will not actually explain the core of it. They will spend their days discussing all the decoys that are in those protocols to erect straw men, instead of talking about the obvious consequences.
One lesson or two would be fine ... (Score:2)
... if the topic of the lesson is "why most cryptocurrency is gambling and/or a scam, and why you should not 'invest' unless you have money you are happy to lose".
Mining cost ? (Score:1)
re: (Score:1)
This is part for the course (Score:2)
Cultist freaks always go for the children, because children are less likely to call bullshit. Shitcoiners are no different.
Bible camp (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)