71% of Wikimedia Contributors in favor of crypto donation ban

10

The majority of the contributors of Wikimedia are looking to ban crypto-based donations for the Wikimedia foundation.

Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world. This foundation is working on an almost similar path to Wikipedia, which depends upon donations. And it uses donations to provide free education and content for internet users. For a long time, Wikimedia has accepted crypto donations.

A day before today, the Wikimedia Foundation published its proposal report on the crypto donation ban/unban, which was initially proposed in January of this year. According to the provided update, 232 out of 326 Wikimedia supporters are in favor of no crypto use for donations purposes. 

Initially, when the suggestion was proposed, then at that time Wikipedia Foundation was suggested removing Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies from the payment options because such cryptocurrencies cause huge environmental issues and the aim of the Wikimedia Foundation is against the support of such things that causes harm to the environment. 

“The risk to the movement’s reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies.”

On 10 January 2022, the Wikimedia community discussion started with El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption as legal tender and associated issues like illegal funding. Further discussion touched on environmental issues because of the Bitcoin network. 

The original proposal stated: 

“Cryptocurrencies may not align with the Wikimedia Foundation’s commitment to environmental sustainability…(..)…Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two most highly-used cryptocurrencies, and are both proof-of-work, using an enormous amount of energy (..) the current models continue to be extremely damaging to the environment.”

Last week Popular web browser service provider Mozilla Foundation announced to start accepting crypto donations. Mozilla foundation confirmed that they will accept cryptocurrencies, which will be eco-friendly. 

Read also: lawsuit against Uniswap crypto exchange for fraudulent activities on the platform