The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, has decided to cease accepting cryptocurrency donations, citing the harmful environmental effect of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. “The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to discontinue accepting cryptocurrency as a means of direct payment… In a statement, the foundation indicated that it reached the decision based on current research communities.
According to a Wikipedian who goes by the Twitter handle Molly While, the decision to discontinue accepting bitcoin as a gift was based on a community request that came out of a three-month-long discussion that ended in April.
The risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies were discussed over the course of three months, and voting was held with 400 Wikipedia editors, with 232 users (71.7%) supporting the proposal against crypto donations and 94 editors voting in favor of crypto donations, while 75 users were excluded from voting.
“Cryptocurrencies are very risky investments that have just lately acquired popularity among average investors, and I do not believe we should be supporting their use in this manner.” “By legalizing them, I believe we are mainstreaming the use of predatory “investments” and technology,” according to the proposal.
Vermont stated in a Wikipedia post that “environmental sustainability, that accepting cryptocurrencies constitutes an implicit endorsement of the issues surrounding cryptocurrencies, and community issues with the risk to the movement’s reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies” were common arguments in support of the proposal to ban cryptocurrency.
According to Vermont, accepting Bitcoin implies compromising our reputation by engaging in this. According to Wikipedian, Mozilla, a prominent web browser, is re-evaluating its decision to accept bitcoin payments after receiving significant pushback from fans.
Mozilla, on the other hand, has just resumed bitcoin payments. The firm will only accept Proof of Stake cryptocurrencies, not Proof of Work cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and others, according to a blog post.
According to Vermont’s statistics, the Wikimedia Foundation received bitcoin contributions totaling $130,000 in the most recent fiscal year, which is clearly less than 0.1 percent of the foundation’s revenue, which reached $150 million last year. Wikipedia received 347 donations using cryptocurrency, with Bitcoin being the most popular method of payment via cryptocurrency in the previous fiscal year.
