The Wikimedia Foundation has previously accepted Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash through the BitPay payment processor
The Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia, has announced that it will no longer accept donations in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, or Ethereum as a result of a three-month-long debate over the advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrencies among members of the community.
The Foundation said in the statement: “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.”
White, on the other hand, is a skeptic of Web3, and she was not persuaded. She stated that, while it is possible that Ethereum and Bitcoin will transition to a proof-of-stake system in the future, such a transition has been sluggish to occur and that “the existing models continue to be tremendously harmful to the ecosystem.”
Following worries about the environmental effect of BTC payments, the Mozilla Foundation temporarily suspended cryptocurrency donations earlier this year. Following an investigation, the non-profit announced last week that it will no longer accept PoW crypto, but will instead accept proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, which are less energy intensive.
A vote by Wikipedia editors last week resulted in a resounding majority to suspend Bitcoin donations. Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrencies, according to the White proposal, are a danger to the foundation’s environmental sustainability aims since they need significant amounts of computational power. During a year’s worth of operation, the biggest cryptocurrency requires 204.5 terawatt hours of power.
According to the research, “problems of environmental sustainability” were cited as a primary justification in opposition to bitcoin. However, there are a number of more energy-efficient blockchains out today that do not rely on proof-of-work mining, such as Cardano (ADA), Tezos (TEZ), Solana (SOL), and Avalanche (AVAX), which are examples of such blockchain technologies.
Proponents of cryptocurrency donations emphasized the need for pseudonymous payments in places where Wikipedia may be prohibited or blocked as justification for their position. It was also suggested that, because Bitcoin is legal cash in El Salvador and the Central African Republic, the organization should allow donors to make contributions in their own country’s official currency instead of BTC.
