2 years ago
The Wikimedia Foundation decided it has had capable of crypto arsenic 71% decided to prohibition each integer plus donations and to adjacent its BitPay account.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which backs Wikipedia, volition unopen down its BitPay relationship and has announced it volition halt accepting cryptocurrency donations based connected assemblage feedback.
The determination to extremity crypto donations was made aft 232 members, oregon 71% of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) community voted successful favour of a Jan. 10 proposal that cited vigor consumption, easiness of usage for sanctioned individuals, vulnerability to crypto scams, and biology sustainability arsenic reasons to halt it.
These issues raised concerns astir however accepting crypto could harm the foundation’s estimation successful the agelong run. Wikipedia is an open-source online encyclopedia and BitPay is simply a crypto outgo work it utilized arsenic a partner.
In a May 1 update to the archetypal connection from the WMF, Chief Advancement Officer Lisa Seitz-Gruwell stated:
“The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to discontinue nonstop acceptance of cryptocurrency arsenic a means of donating […] Specifically, we volition beryllium closing our BitPay account, which volition region our quality to straight judge cryptocurrency arsenic a method of donating.”The connection and consequent treatment that ensued revealed that lone astir $130,000 successful crypto donations were made successful 2021, which accounted for 0.08% of the foundation's full revenue. As a result, it is not apt that the instauration volition endure financially pursuing its caller decision.
The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to halt accepting cryptocurrency donations. The determination was made based connected a assemblage petition that the WMF nary longer judge crypto donations, which came retired of a three-month-long treatment that wrapped up earlier this month. pic.twitter.com/RHAD0FRA5W
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) May 1, 2022WMF subordinate “GorillaWarfare” applauded the determination to ban, arsenic they wrote “This is large news. Thank you for listening to the community.”
Conversely, a vocal hostile of the prohibition since January whose ID is "95.91.212.65.01" wrote:
“This is simply a shame. Especially the past statement made for this RfC turned retired to beryllium purely reactionary. Compare the media reception of Ukraine accepting cryptocurrencies for donations conscionable a fewer weeks after.”Mozilla made a akin determination to prohibition crypto donations for its Firefox browser successful January, lone to partially reverse the determination successful April and statesman lone accepting cryptos implicit proof-of-stake (PoS) networks similar Polygon (MATIC).
Several voters astatine the Wikimedia Foundation cited Mozilla’s concern arsenic 1 to ticker arsenic it could person an interaction connected however the instauration makes aboriginal decisions regarding crypto donations.
Related: 'Ready, steady, NFT:' Ukrainian authorities accepts NFT donations
Supporters of the prohibition bash not look threatened by the imaginable of a spurned crypto community. Foundation subordinate “Dronebogus” wrote successful enactment of the ban:
“Wikimedia is the largest escaped web acquisition corporate connected the planet, what’s Joe Crypto going to bash to “destroy us”? Write a nasty op-ed? Tell his 650 Twitter followers to spell to Everipedia?”Everipedia is simply a rival blockchain-based online encyclopedia. The Wikimedia Foundation has accepted crypto donations since 2014.
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