Mozilla, the 1998-founded software community, made public its decision to accept cryptocurrency donations via Bitpay. A number of users complained soon after this announcement. A week later, Mozilla has announced it is backing away from digital currency acceptance for now and has “paused the ability to donate cryptocurrency.”
Mozilla’s Crypto Acceptance was Revealed Last Week, and it Was Quickly Recovered After Backlash
Mozilla, currently the owners of Gecko, Thunderbird email clients and Firefox, announced last week that it accepted crypto donations through Bitpay. “Dabble in dogecoin? You can HODL some bitcoin [and] ethereum? We’re using Bitpay to accept donations in cryptocurrency,” Mozilla tweetedAt the moment.
Mozilla co-founder Jamie Zawinski criticized Mozilla’s crypto acceptance decision immediately after the tweet. “Hi, I’m sure that whoever runs this account has no idea who I am, but I founded Mozilla and I’m here to say f*** you and f*** this,” Zawinski said. “Everyone involved in the project should be witheringly ashamed of this decision to partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters.”
There are many others shamed Mozilla because of the crypto industry’s so-called effect on climate change. “Bitcoin is so bad for the environment,” Rich Burroughs replied to Mozilla’s tweet. “You might [want to]Rethink that. Surely the planet is more important than a web browser.”
April King (another former Mozilla developer, and security engineer at Dropbox), responded: Hey Mozilla. You probably don’t remember me, but I created the Mozilla Observatory, the Mozilla SSL Configuration Generator, revamped the Firefox certificate viewer, and kept Mozilla safe for a half-decade. I cannot begin to express how disappointed I am in this decision.”
Mozilla Holds an ‘Important Discussion About Cryptocurrency’s Environmental Impact,’ Then Pauses Crypto Donation Acceptance
Mozilla didn’t seem to appreciate the complaints. The company responded on January 6, 2022. “Last week, we tweeted a reminder that Mozilla accepts cryptocurrency donations. This led to an important discussion about cryptocurrency’s environmental impact. We’re listening, and taking action,” Mozilla said. Software company added:
While decentralized web technology is still an area of interest, much has changed since the time we began accepting cryptocurrency donations. Today we will be reviewing how and why our current crypto donation policy is compatible with our climate goals. As we review our current policy, we’ll pause donations of cryptocurrency.
Crypto skeptics claim that digital assets such as bitcoin have been damaging the environment for a long time. This includes the Proof-of-Work (PoW), mining tied to Bitcoin. The environmental complaints are said to be unfounded by a number of crypto asset supporters that believe “bitcoin is one of the most environment-friendly financial networks.”
Many believe that governments and central banks are to blame for the environmental damage. While energy issues have increased in the past year, crypto-proponents stress that nobody is talking about carbon or military violence supporting U.S. Dollars.
Mozilla changing the way it accepts cryptocurrency, despite the numerous complaints received by the company last week as well as environmental concerns. Please comment below to let us know your thoughts on this topic.
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