The Pineapple Fund, which makes donations in bitcoin to charitable organizations, has gifted $1 million worth of bitcoin to the Internet Archive, a non-profit created to build an Internet library.
The Pineapple Fund stated on Reddit that the Internet Archive becomes more valuable by the day, archiving books, abandoned games and sites and communities that have shut down.
According to its website, the Pineapple Fund has already supported 13 charities and has 4,400 BTC still to spend from the 5,057 BTC it plans to spend.
$7 Million Already Donated
The Pineapple Fund has pledged to donate a total 5,057 BTC, valued at $86 million, to charities, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the BitGive Foundation. To date, they have donated to nine charities with 411 BTC (about $7 million).
The Pineapple Fund’s anonymous donor told Hackernoon there are three considerations for supporting a charity: How impactful their work is, what innovation they provide, and their size, efficiency and sustainability.
Direct Bitcoin Donations
The donor contributes the bitcoins directly to the charities. This brings the tax advantage of sending the full amount without being assessed capital gains taxes. The donor does not take any tax deductions for the donations.
Donating in bitcoin also allows the Pineapple Fund to remain anonymous.
The donor, who claims bitcoin has changed their life and now has more money than they can possibly spend, is most excited about a $1 million donation MAPS, an organization supporting research for treatments for mental illness, for which there are many promising treatments. The donor noted having been prescribed ketamine off-label for a lesser known condition with no side effects. The idea for the Pineapple Fund came about during a ketamine IV.
The MAPS donation will help fund its Stage 3 FDA trials for a treatment for PTSD: MDMA assisted psychotherapy.
The donor plans to contribute the majority of the committed funds in the next three months, but is also exploring other projects, such as one called PF Ventures that will help others start charities.
The donor first learned about bitcoin when its price was in single digits. The donor was quick to recognize the benefits of direct fund transfers.
Fund Accepts Donations
The donor noted on Reddit that people who want to support charities should contribute to charities directly, but those who don’t want to donate directly to organizations that the Pineapple Fund supports can contribute to the Pineapple Fund via a BCH wallet on BitPay: CRMquhUfshTco3a8biDRxd9zkdP8Y81C4V
The Pineapple Fund is not a non-profit, the donor stated, and contributors will not receive any tax deductions.
All Pineapple Fund donations will be published on its website.
One Reddit poster criticized Pineapple Fund for supporting BCH and postulated the fund could be a BCH marketing campaign.
The Pineapple Fund prefers to support registered non-profit charities, and does not contribute to individuals. It encourages people to apply for funds on its website.
Donations to Date
Besides the Internet Archive, Pineapple Fund donations to date include:
- $1 million to Watsi, a charity building technology to support universal health care.
- $1 million to The Water Project, which provides sustainable water to African communities.
- $1 million to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which supports Internet privacy and net neutrality.
- $1 million to MAPS, which supports treatments for mental illness.
- $1 million to Sens Research Foundation, which supports research and treatments for aging.
- $1 million to charity: water, which supports providing clean water to people in need of it.
- $1 million to mona, which supports grass roots organizational initiatives to help educate disadvantaged children worldwide.
- $1 million to new story, a non-profit that supports efforts to provide stable housing worldwide.
- $1 million to Pencils of Promise, an organization that supports educational initiatives for children worldwide.
- $100,000 to Green Steps, an organizational that supports efforts to clean the environment in the U.S. state of Tennessee.
- $50,000 to OpenBSD, a Canadian not-for-profit corporation that supports the development of free software based on the OpenBSD operating system.
- $500,000 to the BitGive Foundation, a charity that builds projects to use bitcoin and blockchain technology for international philanthropy.
Featured image from Flickr.
No comments:
Post a Comment