After nearly a decade of doing so, Wikipedia has declared that it will no longer accept cryptocurrency donations. It said that this decision was made in response to environmental concerns highlighted by community members.
The Wikimedia Foundation manages Wikipedia, and it began accepting cryptocurrencies in July 2014. This has been chosen to be discontinued.
When Wikipedia began taking Bitcoin payments in 2014, it did so because of the convenience it provided and the community’s desire to embrace it.
The decision to discontinue this method of collection and close the Bitpay account that they had previously used to receive cryptocurrencies occurred after a three-month-long community debate session.
Recently, there has been a clamour for cryptocurrency regulation for a multitude of reasons, the most important of which is environmental concerns. This is because crypto tokens utilizing the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism require massive amounts of energy to operate.
According to their post, the Wikimedia Foundation stated,
“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. Thank you again to everyone that has provided valuable input on this increasingly complex and shifting topic.”
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