Wikipedia will stop accepting donations of cryptocurrency after 8 years. The decision is based on the request by the Wikimedia community citing “issues of environmental sustainability” as a key reason.
Wikipedia stops accepting Bitcoin and Crypto Donations
Wikimedia Foundation has announced its decision to “discontinue direct acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of donating.” The foundation began accepting bitcoin in July 2014.
“The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia and our other free knowledge projects,” its website details. Wikipedia is an online free encyclopedia, with more than 200K volunteers contributing to it. According to the foundation.
This update was posted on Wikipedia by the organization on May 1st.
Our direct acceptance of cryptocurrency was initiated in 2014, based upon requests made by our volunteer communities and donors. Based on feedback from the same communities, we have made this decision.
“Specifically, we will be closing our Bitpay account, which will remove our ability to directly accept cryptocurrency as a method of donating,” the update continues.
Molly White explained on Sunday, that Wikipedia editors Molly White and Molly White had a three-month-long conversation which started Jan. 10. This discussion ended on April 12. “400 users participated in total, though some were single-purpose accounts created just for the discussion (mostly to try to sway the RfC [Request for Comments] against making this request),” she noted.
The Wikimedia community’s request for comments page explains that common arguments in support of stopping accepting crypto donations include “issues of environmental sustainability, that accepting cryptocurrencies constitutes implicit endorsement of the issues surrounding cryptocurrencies, and community issues with the risk to the movement’s reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies.”
On the other hand, common arguments in opposition of stopping accepting crypto donations include ”the existence of less energy-intensive cryptocurrencies (proof-of-stake), that cryptocurrencies provide safer ways to donate and engage in finance for people in oppressive countries, and that fiat currencies also have issues with environmental sustainability.”
The results are:
Excluding new accounts and unregistered users, the tally is 232 to 94, or 71.17% in support of the proposal … Thus, the Wikimedia community requests that the Wikimedia Foundation stop accepting cryptocurrency donations.
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