Crypto exchange Gemini’s co-founders, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, have donated million each in bitcoin to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Tyler criticized the Biden administration for allegedly weaponizing government agencies, as well as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), against the crypto industry. Cameron echoed these sentiments, declaring Trump as the pro-bitcoin, pro-crypto, and […]
Bitcoin News
Asset Manager Vaneck Pledges to Donate 5% of Spot Bitcoin ETF Profits to Bitcoin Core Developers for 10 Years
Asset management firm Vaneck has pledged to donate 5% of its spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) profits to support Bitcoin Core developers for at least 10 years. The company is currently awaiting approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch its spot bitcoin ETF. The securities regulator is expected to approve multiple applications early next week.
Vaneck to Donate 5% of Spot Bitcoin ETF Profits
Asset manager Vaneck pledged financial support for Bitcoin Core developers on Friday, ahead of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s decision on its spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) application. Vaneck is one of 11 companies vying to launch the first U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs.
“We’re not Bitcoin tourists at Vaneck. We’re in it for the long haul,” Vaneck wrote on social media platform X Friday. The asset manager added:
That’s why we made an initial k donation and signed a pledge to donate 5% of our bitcoin ETF profits (if approved) to support Bitcoin Core devs for at least 10 years.
“Your tireless dedication to decentralization and innovation is the cornerstone of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and we’re here to support it — more details to come,” Vaneck added.
The SEC is expected to make a decision on spot bitcoin ETF approvals early next week. In its year-end predictions, Vaneck said: “We expect more than .4B will flow into newly approved U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs in Q1 2024 to keep the bitcoin price elevated.”
In March, Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital Holdings and Brink, a nonprofit striving to support open-source Bitcoin development, joined forces to raise million for Bitcoin Core developers. Marathon pledged to match all contributions toward this cause, totaling a maximum of 0,000 through 2023.
Venture capitalist Tim Draper, along with the Draper Foundation, has also supported Bitcoin Core developers through donations to Brink. In March, they donated 0,000, followed by another 0,000 in December for Brink’s Bitcoin developer funding efforts, bringing their total contribution to 0,000 for the year. Draper recently doubled down on his BTC prediction of 0,000 this year.
What do you think about Vaneck pledging to donate 5% of its spot bitcoin ETF profits to support Bitcoin Core developers for at least 10 years? Let us know in the comments section below.
Virtual Landowners Donate With a Decentralized Charity
Next Earth, the NFT-based replica of Earth, announced that over ,000 in proceeds from the sale of its virtual land will be donated to four environmental charities. The Ocean Cleanup, SEE Turtles, Kiss the Ground, and Amazon Watch will each receive funds allocated by a community-based vote.
The allocation of funds across these four charities took place in a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), which enables Next Earth’s community to decide how to allocate funds raised from virtual real estate sales. DAOs are a new form of governance structure where token holders can vote for the allocation of resources via decentralized governance, rather than through traditional boardrooms.
The virtual land funds were pre-allocated, with 10% of the total raised being allocated for charitable contributions. The Ocean Cleanup received the largest share of votes, and will get 86 BNB, while SEE Turtles will receive 24.57 BNB, and Kiss the Ground and Amazon Watch will each receive roughly half of the remaining 51 BNB.
The four charities
Next Earth’s decentralized charity initiative is allocating funds across four important environmental groups. Let’s look at each of these in brief.
The Ocean Cleanup is an organization that intends to clean up the world’s oceans using a system that employs floating barriers, which will remove ocean plastic as it is collected, while also collecting plastic from river streams. Ocean plastic is an enormous environmental problem, and The Ocean Cleanup’s system is a promising potential solution to this ongoing crisis.
The Ocean Cleanup has prevented over 1 billion bottles from reaching the oceans. Their goal of cleaning up 90% of the world’s floating ocean plastic is ambitious, but not impossible.
Amazon Watch works to conserve biodiversity and human rights in some of the most fragile ecosystems on Earth – the Amazon Rainforest. They collaborate with indigenous people to drive change. The rainforest is one of the largest carbon sinks on Earth, but it is also home to many endangered species, as well as massive deforestation projects.
SEE Turtles is a non-profit organization that protects endangered sea turtles with conversation tours, supporting nesting beaches, helping to end demand for turtleshells, and cleaning up waste from turtle habitats. These actions are important, complementary efforts to help save turtles.
Kiss the Ground empowers regenerative agriculture efforts, which is a conservation and rehabilitation approach that supports food and farming systems. Regenerative agriculture focuses on topsoil regeneration, biodiversity, improving the water cycle, increasing resilience to climate change, and more.
Why it matters
The most important investment in the world is not buying and selling stocks or bonds. It’s investing in projects that can help us fix our environment. Recently, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published a new report that underscores how urgent it is for humanity to act. It’s now “code red” for humanity.
We are facing a climate crisis. The actions we take today can make or break our future. There is no more important investment than investing in projects that will help us stabilize our climate, adapt to climate change, and get out of the carbon business altogether.
The future needs investment now if we want relief from climate change and resource depletion, and it needs it in new ways that will create opportunities for people who haven’t benefited much from capitalism before. DAO-based charitable giving is one of the most promising ways to invest in future environmental projects.
DAOs, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, are organizations that run on smart contracts on blockchains. They are digital entities that can perform many functions normally associated with traditional businesses, including raising money or issuing securities. In the case of a charity, a DAO may allocate funding to various organizations based on community voting.
In a DAO, it’s easy for new participants to get involved if they want to help make decisions or invest in projects. It also means that companies can more easily turn their focus from making a profit to making the world a better place.
Solving our tremendous global challenges cannot be done solely with traditional means. The billions of people who have been shut out of investing until now may need a better way to support the organizations that are creating change. DAOs can provide a powerful new tool for social engagement and investment, and Next Earth metaverse is using this technology to make a real difference in the long-term health of our planet.
Photo by Drew Graham on Unsplash
NewsBTC
NFT Project To Donate 100% Of Income To Help Afghan Women Access Education
Bookblocks.io, an NFT company has partnered with a New York-based company, Women for Afghan Women to help women in Afghanistan have access to education.
Under the new Taliban-run government, women in Afghanistan have had their rights to education restricted by the fundamentalist militants. Since this development, Afghan women have taken to the streets to protest. Over a dozen women protested outside the premises of what used to be the Afghan Women’s Affairs Ministry – until the Taliban turned it into the department for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice.”
Bookblocks.io NFT
Bookblocks.io announced that it would be releasing a non-fungible token on October 5, and the proceeds of its sales would be given to Women for Afghan Women (WAW). Women for Afghan Women is a grassroots civil society organization dedicated to protecting and promoting the rights of disenfranchised Afghan women and girls in Afghanistan and New York.
According to the company, the inspiration for the NFT was Louisa May Alcott, who was a pioneer for women’s rights. “Not only did her many famous writings seek to lift women in society, but she was an ardent feminist, abolitionist, and supporter of women’s suffrage. As such, she seemed a perfect inspiration for our charity focus this month, which is dedicated to helping the woman and girls of Afghanistan find equality in all aspects of life.”
Total crypto market cap drops to .93 Trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap from TradingView.com
The NFT is a portrait of Louisa May Alcott with two different butterfly wings. It signifies the hopeful emergence of Afghan women and girls from the restrictions that impede their freedoms. The background colors of each NFT are also different, signifying the diversity of backgrounds that make up the women and girls that Women for Afghan Women serve. There are also four different versions of this illustration to represent the 40% of Afghan children who suffer from malnutrition.
The company says it will mint 2200 copies of this NFT to represent the reported 2.2 million girls currently excluded from school in Afghanistan. 100% of the money raised from the sale of the NFTs will go towards Women for Afghan Women, with a 5% residual for each subsequent sale. The price starts at 0.025 Ether (ETH).
Other NFT And Crypto Donations To Afghanistan
There are several ongoing projects in the digital assets space that are focused on charity work towards Afghanistan. About a month ago, Jack Butcher, the founder of Visualize Value, launched a series of NFT “care packages,” that cover one Afghan family’s emergency needs for one month. This care package is still accepting donations via The Giving Block.
Related Reading | An NFT “Care Package”: Tokens That Deliver Humanitarian Aid In Afghanistan
Other organizations are also accepting crypto donations through The Giving Block to provide humanitarian aid in Afghanistan. They include: Save the Children. International Medical Corps, Direct Relief, and Code To Inspire.
Featured image from dw.com, Chart from TradingView.com
Bybit Will Donate 5% of Its 200 BTC Trading Event Prize to Charity
Bybit has made a generous gesture ahead of its August trading event, World Series of Trading. The derivatives exchange has promised to donate 5% of the prize pool to UNICEF to help combat the effects of Covid-19. At current BTC prices, that means the organization is on course to receive over 0,000. The funds will go towards providing aid to children whose education and food supply has been affected by the second-order effects of coronavirus.
“This is an exciting opportunity to partner with Bybit and better shape the lives of children significantly impacted by Covid-19,” said UNICEF NZ Executive Director Vivien Maidaborn, who added, “We thank Bybit and traders for their generous Bitcoin donations during this unprecedented global emergency.”
Traders Flock to Enter the Industry’s Most Prestigious Event
WSOT is the largest event of its kind in crypto, with a smattering of glitz and prestige to accompany the 200 BTC prize pool. Several famous names are rumored to be taking part, including several poker pros and well-known forex traders. Pre-registration for the competition has now concluded, but formal registration is open up until August 14, with late registration being 4 days after the serious business of trading begins. That’s when traders will have a chance to show off their skills, based on their profit vs loss percentage, in a bid to top the leaderboard.
Last year, Bybit hosted a similar competition, BTC Brawl, with a top prize of 100 BTC. WSOT, which will be held twice annually from now on, hasn’t just doubled the prize at stake: it’s generated huge interest in the competition, word of which has transcended the crypto community. By the end of August, when the event wraps up, the crypto community will learn whether one of their own has taken the top prize, or whether an outsider will show bitcoin traders how it’s done.
Derivatives Dominate Crypto Market
Bybit’s rise to prominence has coincided with a general uptick in futures volumes, which tower over spot volumes recorded by crypto exchanges. Derivatives exchanges such as Bybit and FTX have captured market share from CEXs such as Bitfinex and Bitstamp, which have been slow to pivot. Futures exchanges offering high leverage aren’t the only threat to spot exchanges, however: ballooning DEX volumes have given centralized platforms pause for thought.
With more than .5 billion being swapped on DEXs weekly, matching the volume of Coinbase, the defi movement is capturing attention as well as market share. The one area where it can’t compete with CEXs, at least at present, is futures. The faster order execution, lower slippage, and margin requirements of derivatives platforms like Bybit give them a clear edge over defi alternatives. By way of example, Bybit records over .5 billion in volume per day. Should WSOT prove successful, Bybit will cement its status as the fastest rising derivatives exchange in the game and one for the competition, not least BitMEX and Binance Futures, to watch with trepidation.
Unknown Fund to Donate $75M in Bitcoin to Crypto, Anonymity-Focused Startups
n An anonymous organization dubbed Unknown Fund will contribute million in Bitcoin to startups promoting personal data protection, cryptocurrencies and blockchainn
CryptScout #BitFeed RSS – Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency News 24/7
Donate Bitcoin to Protect Internet Privacy With New Tor Project Crowdfund
As part of its fight against internet surveillance, those behind the Tor Project have announced a Bitcoin donation fund. The group is hoping to raise ,000 over the next two weeks to help fund its mission to protect internet users’ privacy online.
The group, whose work was important during Edward Snowden’s whistle blowing and the 2010 Arab spring, have developed various tools to allow internet users to browse in secrecy. They are perhaps most famous for the Tor Browser, which can be used to access what is known as the dark web.
Tor Seeks Bitcoin Donations to Continue Fight Against Internet Surveillance
According to web page detailing the newly-created donation pot for the group of online privacy advocates, funds raised by the #BitcoinForTor crowdfunding project will go towards an ongoing “labor of love” by those “devoted to human rights”. The fund has a softcap of ,000. It will run for a total of 14 days.
The web page details the kind of work the Tor Project engages in and why it is important:
“Every day at the Tor Project, we fight for people everywhere to have private access to an uncensored internet. Tor has become the world’s strongest tool for privacy and freedom online.”
It also features the following explanation video of why the Tor network is useful for safer browsing.
There are two options for people to donate Bitcoin to the Tor Project. They can either send it via BTCPay or can donate to the Tor Project via onion at the following link (only to be accessed through the Tor Browser).
The website also details that the funds donated will be stored directly on a custom Tor Ledger Nano S wallet. The hardware wallet firm reportedly engraved the device with the Tor Project’s onion logo.
At the time of writing, just 0 in Bitcoin of of the ,000 soft cap target has been raised. This has been contributed by more than 30 individuals. Most of these donated between and according to the site. So far, just one contributor has used the 0 or more option listed at the page.
As a non-profit group, the Tor Project relies exclusively on donations from its users and fellow advocates of online freedom. As such, it also runs a permanent donation pot to help it to continue to create tools to allow people to browse without fear of surveillance.
This fixed feature on the project’s main page allows for donations to be made in fiat currency, as well as other crypto assets besides Bitcoin. It currently accepts the following digital currencies: Augur (REP), Bitcoin (XBT), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dash (DASH), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Monero (XMR), Stellar Lumen (XLM), Zcash (ZEC), and Dogecoin (XDG). Fans of the Tor Project’s work can also contribute to the fund via either PayPal or credit card.
Related Reading: Crypto Scam Alert: YouTube Videos Promoting “Bitcoin Generator” Really Pushing Malware
Featured Image from Shutterstock.
The post Donate Bitcoin to Protect Internet Privacy With New Tor Project Crowdfund appeared first on NewsBTC.
Vitalik Buterin, Joseph Lubin Each Donate 1,000 Ether to Moloch DAO
n Ethereum co-founders Joseph Lubin and Vitalik Buterin have each donated 1,000 ether to the Moloch decentralized autonomous organizationn
CryptScout #BitFeed RSS – Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency News 24/7
You Can Now Donate to the Tor Project in 9 Different Cryptocurrencies
The Tor Project is now accepting crypto donations directly, taking bitcoin, ether, monero, zcash and 5 others.
CryptScout #BitFeed RSS – Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency News 24/7
Coinbase CEO To Donate Crypto Wealth, Joins Buffet-backed Philanthropic Effort
Pundits argue that crypto and charity don’t mix. Yet, with a number of efforts from this nascent industry’s foremost participants, it has been made apparent that Bitcoiners (and altcoiners) are far from anti-alms. Case in point, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, recently committed to donating a majority of his crypto wealth in due time.
Brian Armstrong To Donate Millions In Crypto Wealth
Brian Armstrong has long been a powerhouse in the crypto industry. Armstrong, who started his career in Silicon Valley as an Airbnb developer, founded Coinbase, the world-renowned crypto platform now valued at billion, in 2012. Now, just six years later, his personal net-worth has presumably swelled to hundreds of millions, if not billions — on the back of the Bitcoin craze.
And while some early-stage crypto investors/builders have scurried away with their newfound wealth, earlier this year, Armstrong made it clear this wasn’t his plan. In fact, per previous reports from NewsBTC, the San Francisco native launched GiveCrypto, a nonprofit charity aimed at distributing cryptocurrencies “to people in need.”
GiveCrypto, a net benefit for both the impoverished and the crypto industry, has already garnered boatloads of traction, with the CEOs of Ripple, ZCash, Bitcoin.com, BitMEX, and countless other preeminent crypto startups donating collective millions to the initiative. The project, headed by Armstrong and Joe Waltman, has already seen limited success, distributing tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrencies to those in nations such as Venezuela, Mexico, Afghanistan.
While GiveCrypto’s efforts shouldn’t be discounted, just last week, per CNBC, the Coinbase chief doubled down on his philanthropic efforts. In a tweet published on Thursday, Armstrong revealed that he had signed the Giving Pledge, a formal declaration of charity targeted at billionaires created by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.
1/ I’m still early in my journey of discovering how to have the most impact via philanthropy. Today, I’m proud to join the Giving Pledge as part of this journey. You can read my letter here: https://t.co/jBFweoGpFu
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) December 20, 2018
Armstrong purportedly joins Elon Musk of SpaceX, Tesla, and Boring, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a number of the world’s most well-known entrepreneurs, investors, and company founders. The Coinbase founder and cryptocurrency diehard recently took to the GivingPledge’s website to outline his reasoning behind the philanthropic move.
The entrepreneur began by outlining his life goal — “start a billion-dollar tech company” — before adding that it seemed like a quixotic dream for much of his life. But now, Coinbase has been valued at billion, surpassing his original goal by eight-fold, and seems only slated to grow moving into the future. Armstrong noted that now, he doesn’t see much of a need to spend more money on his personal wants, and would rather see others benefit from his wealth.
And of course, the cryptocurrency advocate took some time that he intends to “increase economic freedom” and “create a more level playing field” presumably by the way of the industry has found himself entrenched in. Armstrong wrote:
“There is a quote I saw recently which read ‘The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him their own.’ This stuck with me. I’m interested in helping more people see their ideas come to fruition in the world. My hope is that more people will write down a “crazy” goal some day, just like I did ten years ago, and it will turn out to be not so crazy after all.”
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The post Coinbase CEO To Donate Crypto Wealth, Joins Buffet-backed Philanthropic Effort appeared first on NewsBTC.