Wikipedia to stop accepting crypto donations on environmental grounds

Non-profit organization

Wikimedia

that runs Wikipedia announced to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations. The decision has been taken after receiving the responses from Wikipedia volunteers and donor community in a three-month long debate on receiving cryptocurrency donations. Wikimedia invited requests for comments (RfC) from its community from January 10, 2022 to April 12, 2022, where about 400 users participated in the voting and discussion concerning the proposition that the Wikimedia Foundation stop accepting cryptocurrency donations.

The poll was voted heavily in favour of the proposal, with a tally of 71.17% or 232 to 94, excluding the new accounts and unregistered users. With very little opposition the results indicated overall community support.

The RfC has been closed now on the page. The arguments that were raised in support of the proposition were the following:
- The users cited environmental damage as one of the main reasons.
- They argued that accepting cryptocurrencies would be tantamount to endorsing the issues surrounding cryptocurrencies.
- This would also mean endorsing community issues with the risk to the movement’s reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies.

The arguments against the proposal included the following :
- The community cited the options of less energy-intensive cryptocurrencies based on a proof-of-stake model.
- Another argument in opposition of the proposal said that cryptocurrencies offer secured and safe ways to make donations and engage in finance for people in oppressive regimes and weak economic conditions.
- The opposition also pointed out that fiat currencies also have issues with environmental sustainability.

Molly White who is one of the contributors of Wikipedia informed on Twitter on May 1 that Wikimedia Foundation has discontinued the acceptance of cryptocurrencies as a means of donation. In order to implement the new measure the organization will close its BitPay account which will remove the ability to directly accept cryptocurrencies as donations. Wikimedia foundation started accepting cryptocurrency donations in 2014 based on the requests of their donors and volunteers.

The proposal on which voting was done was also originally made by Molly White who stated that Wikipedia risked damaging its reputation by accepting

crypto donations

, citing the decision of another non-profit organization, Mozilla, which stopped accepting donations in crypto based on proof-of-work model in April, 2022.

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