The Wikimedia Foundation, which supports Wikipedia, will close its BitPay account and stop accepting crypto donations after community requests to no longer accept crypto donations. Community members voted in favour of the proposal to restrict crypto donation services. The proposal cited energy consumption, exposure to crypto scams, ease of use for sanctioned individuals, and environmental sustainability as reasons to stop the donations. Community demanded that these questions can hinder the foundation’s long-term image if it continues to accept crypto. Finally, the decision was made to end crypto donations and suspend BitPay accounts on May 1.
Lisa Seitz-Gruwell, the WMF’s Chief Advancement Officer, provided a quick overview of the plan on May 1.
“The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to discontinue direct acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of donating […] Specifically, we will be closing our BitPay account, which will remove our ability to directly accept cryptocurrency as a method of donating.”
In January, Mozilla made a similar decision to restrict crypto donations for its Firefox browser, only to partially reverse it in April and restart taking cryptos exclusively through proof-of-stake (PoS) networks like Polygon (MATIC).
Mozilla’s case was also highlighted by several Wikimedia Foundation voters since it may have an influence on how the foundation makes future choices about crypto contributions.
The notion of a snubbed crypto community does not appear to be a concern to supporters of the ban. “Dronebogus,” a foundation member, wrote in support of the ban:
“Wikimedia is the largest free web education collective on the planet, what’s Joe Crypto going to do to “destroy us”? Write a nasty op-ed? Tell his 650 Twitter followers to go to Everipedia?”
