• KT will develop blockchain based platform for receiving crypto donations
• Donors will be able to monitors their donations using blockchain technology
• The platform will boost number of donors and recipients

South Korean Telecom giant KT is building a blockchain based donation service for its affiliate the KT Group Hope Sharing Foundation. According to the firm’s announcement, KT will first develop a blockchain based peer-to-peer platform to receive donations before launching a full public blockchain. Members of the foundation will not only make contributions but they will also be able to track how and where their donations were spent using the services of the privately managed blockchain hosted by KT’s central server.

Direct donations

The donations-oriented blockchain will first be tested in a program to donate for Laos children sometime next year, during which the Telco giant will upgrade the services to allow members to make direct donations to recipients.

The blockchain and cryptocurrencies have continued to make headlines and nonprofit organizations that rely on charity are scouting on the impact of cryptocurrencies in their fundraising programs.

Several charity organizations are now accepting donations in leading cryptocurrencies. The French UNICEF is the latest participant in this program after launching a program in late September among other crypto-related initiatives started earlier in the year.

The French UNICEF Office began accepting contributions in Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), Eos (EOS), Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH) and Stellar (XLM). The director of UNICEF France, with Director Sébastien Lyon stating:

“Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology used for charitable purposes offer a new opportunity to appeal to the generosity of the public and continue to develop our operations with children in the countries of intervention.”

Opening doors

By accepting cryptocurrency donations, charity organizations will open the door to accept donations from anyone, anywhere in the world without paying international exchange fees, changing currencies and dealing with international banks and deal with their mandate which is caring for the community.

With fiat currency donations between 1 percent and 7.5 percent of every single dollar goes to pay for different fees but with large crypto donations, the respective fees are negligible, making it cheaper for charities to accept crypto donations. International donors can now feel ensured that their donations won’t be used to pay expensive fees and using the Distributed Ledger Technology they will monitor whether their hard earned money is spent for the intended purposes.  

KT hopes that by enabling direct donations it will boost the number of recipients and promote small donations. In July, the company introduced blockchain to its commercial network and said it will reach 100,000 transactions per second by next year besides applying blockchain into its mobile gift card service.