Jay-Z sells Bitcoin in the projects. Not everyone buys.

It was an eyebrow-raising venture from the start: two billionaire crypto-evangelists funded a 12-week “Bitcoin Academy” for residents of a Brooklyn public housing complex, with classes ranging from “Careers in Crypto” to a seminar on “Why Decentralization Matters.” Three months later, the class has been dismissed, and tenants at Marcy Houses have very different opinions on the whole matter — backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and rapper Jay-Z, who reportedly grew up in Building 524.

Some residents remain ardent skeptics: “How are you helping us if you’re asking us to put in five dollars, $10, and we’re all on fixed incomes?” asked Lydia Bryant, 57, adding that people’s money would probably be safer in “a real stock” rather than crypto.

Some didn’t pick up much: “I took the class, but I didn’t really understand much,” said one retiree who used to work as a school bus matron in Queens.

But some are new-found Bitcoin believers, convinced that the crypto markets will go up. “I thought Bitcoin was a scam,” said 56-year-old Danny Craft, a college graduate. “I’m coming to find out, you just have to know how to do it. When you put money into it, you just let it sit there and you let it grow.”

As for the student vibe, it didn’t hurt that graduates got a surprise: $1,000 in crypto for completing the program. One alumna told The Daily Beast that she has already started moving some of her other assets into crypto, with plans to buy more with each paycheck.

“If you take it out, you lose the benefit of having something in the long run,” she argued. She said one of her takeaways from the academy was that her money would likely double or triple over time.

And if the opposite happened, was she worried? “As long as it goes back up.”

Founded in 2009, Bitcoin’s value rose exponentially to an all-time high north of $60,000 per token last year. But it remains very unstable. Over the past 12 months, the price has fallen by more than half, and on Monday and Tuesday alone it fell by close to 10 per cent.

For someone like Dorsey—whose Twitter bio simply reads “#bitcoin” (plus a Bitcoin emoji), and who is worth an estimated $4.7 billion—this volatility is manageable.

But from the perspective of some Marcy residents, the risk is far greater, especially if they start pouring in their own savings.

“For you to take your money that you worked for, or your government-backed funds, and invest it in something like Bitcoin that’s really risky, there’s no gain,” said one tenant, who asked not to be named out of concern. about “blowback” from some of her crypto-bullish neighbors.

Even the $1,000 grant, she said, is unlikely to provide a life-changing return in a place where some “people are broke and struggling to make ends meet.”

The retired bus matron, meanwhile, said that while she doesn’t fully understand how Bitcoin works, she gathered enough to know “I can’t gamble with my retirement money.”

Others believed that the academy adequately highlighted the risks of crypto, saying that the courses provided participants with the information to make their own financial choices.

“The class didn’t tell them … ‘Yeah, take your savings and convert them to Bitcoin,'” said Matthew Powell. He attended the sessions with Craft, his childhood friend; both said they understood that digital currency markets come with risks.

Powell said he had “messed around with Bitcoin” before joining the academy, but when the price fell, he cut his losses and bailed. His newfound insight from the courses: “Take something, put it there, and just let it sit.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for The Bitcoin Academy said the group considers the first session “a pilot, and [we] will certainly repeat and improve as we go along. We surveyed students along the way and are in the process of reviewing their feedback so we can understand more about the classroom experience and gain data about their interests and goals as we think about how to design the next phase of the program.”

Sitting on a cluster of benches on the south side of the Marcy complex, another Bitcoin Academy graduate, named Queen Bee, said she found the courses engaging. The classes came with a different free dinner each session, she said, including oxtail, fish, shrimp and “vegan night.”

Participants were given access to WiFi devices and smartphones if needed, and although Queen Bee said she had to miss some sessions due to COVID and a hospitalization, she received her $1,000 bonus. She doesn’t plan to sell, as that would incur a tax liability, and she said she has no interest in paying taxes on something that was given to her for free.

Another participant, Tina, who sat next to her, also had positive feedback about the course, although she missed sessions after her husband fell ill, before he died. “I would do it again,” she said.

The Marcy houses were built in 1949 and made famous by Jay-Z. When he was young, he has said, the area was notoriously dangerous. “I’m from the Marcy Houses, where the boys die by the thousands,” he rapped on his 2017 track, “Marcy Me.”

The rapper has been giving back to the community in recent years, and several residents complimented his generosity. “He’s so good for our people,” said Jessie Mackey, a 65-year-old tenant who had to miss most Bitcoin events to care for her sister.

Edith Williams, who said she attended one session, is pushing her grown children to sign up for the next academic cohort, provided they get the chance. She has invested some money in crypto and plans to wait a few months to see if it pans out. And if it does, she said, she has no intention of cashing out: “Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll.”