The Wikimedia Foundation, which is responsible for funding Wikipedia, has concluded the discussion of not accepting crypto donations, after a poll and several discussions conducted among the Wikipedia community members.
Around 71% of users, that is 232 out of 326 Wikipedia contributors voted to stop accepting crypto donations.
A proposal to stop accepting crypto donations on account of their highly damaging environmental impact was posted on January 10.
The proposal also pointed out that accepting crypto donations could be seen as an endorsement of cryptocurrency by the organization and could damage the reputation of the wikimedia foundation.
Pro-crypto arguments involved pointing out that proof-of-stake crypto consumes much less energy and that tokens allow for seamless and global transactions without a third-party or government involvement.
The discussion also talked about the adoption of crypto as a legal tender in El Salvador and the role played by crypto in the ongoing attack on Ukraine by Russia. The debate and discussion lasted until April 12.
The foundation, until now, received crypto donations in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. The crypto donations were spot-converted daily into fiat currency using BitPay, a bitcoin payment service provider.
Crypto donations made up less than 1% of the donations received by the foundation. In 2021, the foundation received $130,100 in crypto donations out of the total $162 million received in donations.
Thus, ultimately the Wikimedia community asked the Wikimedia Foundation to stop accepting crypto donations.
Wikipedia, with this move will be moving in the opposite direction to the rest of the world which is moving towards greater crypto adoption by the hour. Infact, a new concept of Decentralized Philosophy has been slowly gaining traction. The Graph’s Index Africa has adopted this new concept by donating a portion of the rewards generated from their blockchain to encourage digital and STEM education in Africa.
