Wikipedia Stops Accepting Cryptocurrency Donations Citing Community’s Environmental Concerns

2 years ago

Wikipedia Stops Accepting Cryptocurrency Donations Due to Environmental Issues

Wikipedia has decided to halt accepting cryptocurrency donations aft 8 years of doing so. The determination is based connected the petition by the Wikimedia assemblage citing “issues of biology sustainability” arsenic a cardinal reason.

Wikipedia Discontinues Accepting Bitcoin, Crypto Donations

Wikimedia Foundation has announced its determination to “discontinue nonstop acceptance of cryptocurrency arsenic a means of donating.” The instauration began accepting bitcoin successful July 2014.

“The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia and our different escaped cognition projects,” its website details. Wikipedia is simply a escaped online encyclopedia with implicit 200K unpaid contributors, according to the foundation.

The enactment posted an update connected its Wikipedia leafage connected May 1, stating:

We began our nonstop acceptance of cryptocurrency successful 2014 based connected requests from our volunteers and donor communities. We are making this determination based connected caller feedback from those aforesaid communities.

“Specifically, we volition beryllium closing our Bitpay account, which volition region our quality to straight judge cryptocurrency arsenic a method of donating,” the update continues.

Molly White, a Wikipedia editor, explained Sunday that the determination came retired of a three-month-long treatment which she started connected Jan. 10. The treatment wrapped up connected April 12. “400 users participated successful total, though immoderate were single-purpose accounts created conscionable for the treatment (mostly to effort to sway the RfC [Request for Comments] against making this request),” she noted.

The Wikimedia community’s petition for comments leafage explains that communal arguments successful enactment of stopping accepting crypto donations see “issues of biology sustainability, that accepting cryptocurrencies constitutes implicit endorsement of the issues surrounding cryptocurrencies, and assemblage issues with the hazard to the movement’s estimation for accepting cryptocurrencies.”

On the different hand, communal arguments successful absorption of stopping accepting crypto donations see ”the beingness of little energy-intensive cryptocurrencies (proof-of-stake), that cryptocurrencies supply safer ways to donate and prosecute successful concern for radical successful oppressive countries, and that fiat currencies besides person issues with biology sustainability.”

According to the results:

Excluding caller accounts and unregistered users, the tally is 232 to 94, oregon 71.17% successful enactment of the connection … Thus, the Wikimedia assemblage requests that the Wikimedia Foundation halt accepting cryptocurrency donations.

What bash you deliberation astir Wikipedia discontinuing accepting crypto donations? Let america cognize successful the comments conception below.

Kevin Helms

A pupil of Austrian Economics, Kevin recovered Bitcoin successful 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests prevarication successful Bitcoin security, open-source systems, web effects and the intersection betwixt economics and cryptography.

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