The past decade has produced an eruption in diverse giving channels and options for donating, changing the patterns of how people give. According to Blackbaud, online giving has shown steady increases, growing from 6.4% of all giving in 2013 to 8.5% in 2018. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies have been donated as well, with notable donations including over $100 million to Fidelity Charitable, $29 million to DonorsChoose, $4 million to The Ellen Degeneres Wildlife Fund and many more. From industry startups designing programs that make donating cryptocurrency easier, to charities being more receptive to actually taking those donations, …

On June 17, Gaming giant Ubisoft released a series of blockchain-based digital collectibles for the popular gaming and television franchise, Rabbids. Money raised through the sale of these collectables will go to support the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF. According to VentureBeat, France-based Ubisoft is launching around 55 Rabbids collectibles as tokens on Ethereum's blockchain. These assets are represented by ERC-721 Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs. The collectibles have their own properties, design, value, and can be traded like trading cards. Ubisoft will donate all proceeds from the sale of these collectables to the UNICEF fund. Transactions made in ETH …

Many financial and human resources are being deployed in the effort to fight the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Technologies are also being used in this fight: artificial intelligence for research, 5G to increase information transmission speed and many others. Blockchain is not being left out of this fight, as it now plays an important role in helping institutions and governments around the world respond to COVID-19, and is currently being integrated into healthcare and food supply chains. How blockchain platforms can help defeat a pandemic Blockchain platforms can be used to monitor pandemic material distribution, donations, relief distribution and other responses …

The crypto community is incredibly financially literate and savvy. Despite everyone calling for crypto adoption and more merchants to accept crypto as payment, most people want to accumulate more crypto, not spend it. Holders think it will be worth more in the future, so why spend it now? Spending Bitcoin (BTC) at Starbucks for a cup of coffee is a huge pain in the side. Although the transaction itself might be relatively painless with the help of a mobile app, the accounting and tax implications can be frightening if you’re transacting on a regular basis. This is because the United …

Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of popular messaging app Telegram, has purportedly resumed his charity activity soon after terminating Telegram’s blockchain project. Known for philanthropic activity, including a $1 million donation to Wikipedia, Durov has donated 10 bitcoins (BTC) to a charity project in Russia. The coins are worth around $96,000 at time of publication. Donation will help people facing financial difficulties due to coronavirus The new donation intends to support a project backed by political activist, Yegor Zhukov — who established himself as a symbol of anti-Kremlin protests. The donated Bitcoin will be spent to help people facing financial …

Completing its second independent developer grant, crypto exchange OKCoin has donated $100,000 to open-source crypto payment processor BTCPay Server. In addition to its worldwide fiat on-ramp/off-ramp focus, the OKCoin exchange sees the importance of furthering the industry's framework, OKCoin CEO Hong Fang told Cointelegraph, explaining: "We also have a special responsibility to support free or open-source software (FOSS) development which provides the building blocks in which exchanges are built upon." OKCoin initiated its grant in 2019 OKCoin started up its Independent Developer Grant in 2019, according to a statement provided to Cointelegraph. The grant aims to give capital to open-source …

This week’s headlines from Japan included BitBank exchange adding three trading pairs, Bitpoint exchange posting decreased fiscal year totals, Bitpoint adding information on its 2019 hack, and Binance donating masks to Japanese nursing homes through its charity arm. Check out some of this week’s crypto and blockchain headlines, originally reported by Cointelegraph Japan. BitBank adds three more asset pairings Japan's BitBank exchange gave details this week on three upcoming additional trading pairs. The platform originally unveiled the fresh pairs in late April. On May 24, BitBank will complete a four-hour offline upgrade to put the pairs into play. After the …

Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso joined forces with the crowdfunding platform Donadora to launch a crypto-based donation system. The platform will help gather funds to buy food for the most vulnerable families affected by the COVID-19 crisis. According to a report published by El Heraldo de México on May 15, each pantry delivered will be worth 150 Mexican pesos. They will have enough food to feed families of between four and six members for a week. Donation options include both fiat currencies and various cryptos, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and XRP. Crypto donations gain popularity as a crowdfunding method …

Peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency marketplace Paxful announced on May 4 the expansion of its #BuiltWithBitcoin charitable initiative in Africa with the launch of the “Africa Fund.” The fund will use Bitcoin (BTC) donations to purchase essential resources for the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. According to the announcement, COVID-19 cases are increasing in Africa “at exponential rates.” Fundraising aims to acquire Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), food packs, and provide high-risk individuals with groceries and handwashing stations. Paxful will start the fund with $15,000 and match any additional donations submitted up to $15,000 in BTC. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Paxful CEO Ray Youseff …

Decentralized storage network, Storj, has launched a program providing free storage to organizations participating in COVID-19 research. The program follows widespread contributions from the crypto community toward the distributed scientific research platform, Folding@Home. Organization researching COVID-19 qualify for 2TB in storage On April 22, Blockchain-based cloud network, Storj, announced a program offering free online storage to organizations engaged in research contributing to the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Storj’s storage program will provide qualifying organizations with one terabyte of free cloud storage. Qualifying entities will also receive a monthly bandwidth of one terabyte of storage on its Tardigrade decentralized …

On April 5, Italy’s “blood donation day,” the Italian Red Cross constructed an advanced medical post using funds generated through a crypto fundraiser. The Italian Red Cross has raised nearly $32,000 through cryptocurrency donations in less than one month. Roughly $22,000 has been used to finance the construction of the initiative’s first advanced medical post in the town of Castel Gandolfo near Rome. The funds were spent by the initiative to purchase a pneumatic tent that will house the medical post, in addition to other materials. The tent was erected during Italy’s "blood donation day" and used as a screening …

The Stellar Development Foundation is matching donations in Lumens (XLM) made to six non-profits during April, including the Tor Project — the team behind ‘The Onion Router’ anonymizing browser. Donations will be matched up to a total of 1.9 million XLM (roughly $79,300), with the foundation launching the initiative by donating 100,000 XLM ($4,200) to each of the charities Stellar to match donations to Tor Project On April 4, the Tor Project announced that the Stellar Development Foundation had pledged to match all XLM donations on a 1:1 basis this month. Sarah Stevenson, fundraising director for Tor Project, tweeted that …