Wikimedia Foundation shutters BitPay account halting crypto donations
The Wikimedia Foundation, which backs Wikipedia, will shut down its BitPay account and has announced it will stop accepting cryptocurrency donations based on community feedback.
The decision to end crypto donations was made after 232 members, or 71% of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) community voted in favor of a Jan. 10 proposal that cited energy consumption, ease of use for sanctioned individuals, exposure to crypto scams, and environmental sustainability as reasons to stop it.
These issues raised concerns about how accepting crypto could damage the foundation’s reputation in the long run. Wikipedia is an open-source online encyclopedia and BitPay is a crypto payment service it used as a partner.
In a May 1 update to the original proposal from the WMF, Chief Advancement Officer Lisa Seitz-Gruwell stated:
The proposal and subsequent discussion that ensued revealed that only about $130,000 in crypto donations were made in 2021, which accounted for 0.08% of the foundation's total revenue. As a result, it is not likely that the foundation will suffer financially following its recent decision.
The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations. The decision was made based on a community request that the WMF no longer accept crypto donations, which came out of a three-month-long discussion that wrapped up earlier this month. pic.twitter.com/RHAD0FRA5W
WMF member “GorillaWarfare” applauded the move to ban, as they wrote “This is great news. Thank you for listening to the community.”
Conversely, a vocal opponent of the ban since January whose ID is "95.91.212.65.01" wrote:
Mozilla made a similar move to ban crypto donations for its Firefox browser in January, only to partially reverse the decision in
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