Cryptocurrency can actually make a difference by helping people

September 5, 2021 Coin Telegraph

The simplicity of crypto could be a game-changer for charities. One influencer is capitalizing on this to save a sanctuary for at-risk youth.

Between Bitcoin (BTC) breaking the $50,000 hurdle and the upswell in the altcoin markets, crypto has never been more appealing to speculators. But, stacking profits through trading is worthless unless that money is spent. Luckily, charitable organizations are waking up to the possibility of crypto donations as the world embraces crypto. For blockchain entrepreneur Wendy O, when a local gym was in jeopardy, she knew to tap into crypto Twitter for help. Using social media, her YouTube channel and Tik-Tok, the influencer sent out the call to save a business dear to her heart.

The Self Care Lab is a boxing gym located in Pomona, CA which caters to underprivileged and at-risk youth. Owner Nita Watson recently discovered that the ownership of the gym’s building had changed hands and she had a mere 30 days to vacate and find a new home for a community she had spent years building up.

Thankfully, Wendy O is a long-time client of the gym and a strong proponent of using physical fitness to uplift the youth. Wendy tapped into her network of blockchain enthusiasts, traders, entrepreneurs and self-declared “degens” to raise the funds to not only move locations but upgrade various, worn-down pieces of equipment. While the gym’s Go Fund Me page has not reached its final goal, there have been enough donations in fiat and crypto to secure a new location. Wendy O told Cointelegraph:

“This gym has been such a massive part of my life and I can’t imagine where I’d be without it. It’s more than boxing, it’s about self-care and therapy. And a lot of these kids need a positive place like this to keep them focused and out of other less-productive activities. As someone who’s made a living in crypto, I knew I could count on my friends to step in and make a difference.”

However, the innovation didn’t stop at allowing crypto donations. To capture the attention of the nascent blockchain art community, Wendy O successfully launched a series of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) on the Theta blockchain, with thousands sold so far. Two of these NFTs are redeemable for consulting sessions with Wendy O, injecting some utility into the donations. Bridging the gap between speculators and charity is a relatively new phenomenon in the decentralized asset ecosystem, though it will likely be more popular as more well-known names in the space begin leveraging crypto for charitable causes. By avoiding payment operators, middle-men and third-party processors, more of each crypto donation is able to be received.

Other projects have long accepted donations in Bitcoin including the Kessler Foundation and the Dementia Society of America. Most recently, the PAWS Animal Rescue in Chicago began accepting donations in Dogecoin (DOGE). Even though there are no NFTs involved in the case of PAWS, the appeal of helping dogs with such a popular canine-themed token seems undeniable.

Most recently, the blockchain sector has been supporting charities focused on assisting humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan. As thousands of refugees seek new homes all over the world, nonprofits are stepping up to take action. Consulting firm Visualize Value recently joined forces with CARE to sell NFTs that cover a family’s emergency needs.

As impactful as these donations are, it may be the convenience of crypto that ultimately drives more users to send funds. Generally speaking, the traditional route to donate online includes filling out a lengthy form, manually inputting credit card info and other steps to complete a donation. In contrast, for crypto investors comfortable making blockchain transactions, sending BTC or Ether (ETH) is second nature. Instead of bidding on penguin NFTs, in this case, they are helping a just cause.

A casual glance at some of the posts on Crypto Twitter may seem a bit strange. Timelines are filled with random shills, various scams, traders celebrating their wins and stories of people losing untold sums due to bad trading practices. While it may seem like a rough crowd to an outsider, however, those who can navigate the space are able to find charitable diamonds in the rough.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Kaltoro is the senior social media manager at Cointelegraph.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

‘Billion of users adopting Bitcoin? Maybe in ten years’, says Dan Held

June 25, 2021 Coin Telegraph

“Bitcoin maximalists? They can’t stop innovation”, says Mati Greenspan

June 17, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Has Wall Street taken over Bitcoin?

May 21, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Banks

Institutional adoption is threatening Bitcoin's revolutionary mission, says Ben Hunt, founder of Second Foundation Partners

Ben Hunt, founder of Second Foundation Partners and lead author at the Epsilon Theory blog is convinced institutional adoption poses an existential threat for Bitcoin's identity as an instrument of financial freedom.

As investment funds, banks and tech companies are getting involved in the space, Bitcoin's fundamental properties – permissionless access and censorship resistance – are becoming increasingly marginalized, Hunt told Cointelegraph in an exclusive interview.

“What we are seeing is the Facebook-ization of Bitcoin. And it becomes absolutely controlled and in service to Wall Street and the government”, said Hunt.

According to Hunt, institutions have created “securitized”, “permissioned” versions of Bitcoin, allowing investors to get exposure to the world's largest cryptocurrency without holding it directly.

In Hunt’s view, governments are encouraging Wall Street’s co-option of Bitcoin, as that will make the leading cryptocurrency easier to control: as Hunt points out, financial institutions in the US are required to disclose their customers’ identities and transaction information according to the Bank Secrecy Act.

“If you put money into a Bitcoin related private fund, there's no more revolution, there's no more resistance associated with that”, he said.

But is it really too late to preserve Bitcoin’s revolutionary identity?

To find out, watch the full interview on our YouTube channel and don’t forget to subscribe!

‘Cultish’ Bitcoin comments by Nobel Prize winner strike at heart of BTC

May 20, 2021 Coin Telegraph

bitcoin cash

Paul Krugman's harsh comments touched on core development issues within the Bitcoin community.

Long-time cryptocurrency critic and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said in a string of tweets on Wednesday that Bitcoin (BTC) could very well survive indefinitely, but only as a fundamentally useless cult.

Krugman’s harsh words were prompted in response to Wednesday’s market plunge which saw numerous coins lose close to 50% in value, and resulted in close to $1 trillion in value departing the global market cap before a recovery bounce brought some of that sum back.

“I don't write much about Bitcoin because there aren't any fundamentals to discuss,” tweeted Krugman, who wrote about Bitcoin as early as 2013 in his New York Times blog, calling it “evil” at the time.

“BTC isn't a new innovation; it's been around since 2009, and in all that time nobody seems to have found any good legal use for it. It's not a convenient medium of exchange; it's not a stable store of value; it's definitely not a unit of account,” continued Krugman, taking aim at the two use-cases generally attributed to Bitcoin: a means of payment, and a store of value.

While the crypto faithful may be quick to defend Bitcoin against any and all attacks (perceived or real), Krugman’s critique chimes with many figures in the cryptocurrency space who believe Bitcoin’s utility has been hamstrung in recent years by ill-conceived and misguided development decisions.

For example, Bitcoin’s average transaction fee rose to as high as $62.77 in late-April — a single statistic that causes Bitcoin’s attributed reputation as a day-to-day currency to dissipate before our eyes. This is largely because the Bitcoin block size is still limited to 1MB (third-party applications increase this figure somewhat), despite it being capable of much higher transaction throughput.

The block size debate caused a rift in the Bitcoin community in 2017 and saw a big-block faction break away to form Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Bitcoin Cash increased the foundational protocol’s block size to 8MB and then 32MB in pursuit of achieving the vision of peer-to-peer electronic cash laid out by Satoshi Nakamoto in the original whitepaper.

Bitcoin developers’ refusal to raise the block size was followed by a narrative shift in which Bitcoin was rebranded as “digital gold” — a store of value, and not something to be used as a transactional currency. This shift was reasoned as necessary because increasing the block size to include more transactions would mean the blockchain would grow larger and demand more hard drive space from node operators over time.

Opponents of the digital gold vision argue that hard drive space is something growing cheaper by the day, and would not pose an obstacle to would-be miners or node operators. Indeed, since 2015 alone the average cost of hard drive space per gigabyte fell from $0.038, to the current price of $0.021 witnessed at the time of publication. The 400GB Bitcoin blockchain could fit 25 times over onto a consumer hard drive that can presently be purchased for around $200.

And while analysts claim Bitcoin will eventually find price stability at some point in the future, that day has not yet arrived. Recent price volatility is an obvious reminder of this, as is the ever-constant flow of large sums of BTC to centralized exchanges, as whales constantly look to capitalize on market fluctuations.

Krugman said the perceived value of Bitcoin rested on the illusion that it was a technological solution to the impending collapse of the fiat system, something he suggested was a libertarian folly.

“Its value rests on the perception that it's a technologically sophisticated way to protect yourself from the inevitable collapse of fiat money, which is coming one of these days, or maybe one of these centuries,” Krugman said, adding, “Or, as I say, libertarian derp plus technobabble.”

Krugman signed off on a week of drama in the crypto space by extending a barbed olive branch to the Bitcoin crowd. Krugman suggested Bitcoin’s longevity was assured, but only because new members would constantly be recruited to its “cult.”

“But I've given up predicting imminent demise. There always seems to be a new crop of believers. Maybe just think of it as a cult that can survive indefinitely,” he said.

Bitcoin Community