Wikipedia is no longer accepting cryptocurrencies over climate concerns
- maj
- 02
What you need to know
- The outfit behind Wikipedia has announced it will no longer accept cryptocurrency donations.
- The energy footprint of crypto continues to be a source of concern among many.
Only 0.08% of the last fiscal year's donations were made up of crypto.
The Wikimedia Foundation is going to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations following weeks of consultations. The outfit behind Wikipedia first began accepting donations via crypto back in 2014 but growing concerns surrounding its impact on the environment recently caused some to call for it to stop doing so.
It's unlikely that this will make that much difference to Wikimedia, however. A new report claims that the non-profit received just $130,000 in crypto donations over the last fiscal year — a number which equates to just 0.08% of its revenue.
In a statement on the Wikimedia website, the outfit said that it would continue to monitor the situation, potentially opening the door for crypto to be accepted once more at some point in the future.
The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to discontinue direct acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of donating. We began our direct acceptance of cryptocurrency in 2014 based on requests from our volunteers and donor communities. We are making this decision based on recent feedback from those same communities. Specifically, we will be closing our Bitpay account, which will remove our ability to directly accept cryptocurrency as a method of donating.
We will continue to monitor this issue, and appreciate the feedback and consideration given to this evolving matter by people across the Wikimedia movement. We will remain flexible and responsive to the needs of volunteers and donors.
The role that crypto plays in the environment is a hot topic with some arguing that the energy required to run the whole operation is too much to bear at a time when climate change continues to be a problem. As you'd expect, not everyone is happy with this latest news but the numbers would suggest that the number of people donating via crypto was relatively small.