Cryptocurrencies and philanthropy: How cryptos have influenced charitable endeavors

What started in 2009 with Bitcoin has now seamlessly woven into our societies, orchestrating a shift in numerous social and economic paradigms. From empowering everyday individuals to effortlessly pay for basic items like coffee or fast food, eliminating the need for physical currency or navigating through a banking app, to providing the middle class with savings that possess the potential for appreciation. In this process, they’ve garnered the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of users, not only in countries ranking high on the economic freedom index but also in regions adept at trade with minimal bureaucratic hurdles. As of September 2023, metrics from Chainalysis reveal that the United States stands among the top five nations in cryptocurrency adoption, with nearly 30,000 crypto ATMs already dotting the landscape of this North American giant.

Blockchain and crypto have made a significant impact on multiple fields, with philanthropy standing out as particularly intriguing. We’ve brought up this topic as it seems rarely explored in debates or information portals. Transparency emerges as one of the fundamental characteristics of Blockchain, given its technology’s immutable concatenation of information blocks. Once a new block is added, altering data without modifying the previously added blocks becomes nearly impossible. This has significantly influenced how donations are delivered. Through Blockchain, it is possible to track and verify donations in real time, a feature that naturally fosters increased donor confidence.

Just imagine that you are a person with countless resources and, after a natural disaster of epic proportions, you decide to help the victims. How much faith would you lose in humanity if it came to light that much of the funds never reached those most in need? Dear reader, maybe you live in a very safe environment and you have little or no interest in what happens outside of it, but let me tell you that these things happen… Corruption is universal and inherent to human beings; In fact, we introduced the example of natural disasters for an unfortunate reason. Does Hurricane Katrina of 2005 sound familiar to you? Or the 2010 Haiti earthquake? Both times there were reports of numerous fake websites, scam calls, and some donations never reaching those in desperate need. What’s more, it is not necessary to go that far back, since the same thing happened during the Australian wildfires in 2019-2020 and even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to Blockchain, it is possible to reduce the risk of scams to a minimum, eliminating intermediaries and ensuring that a very high proportion of the money goes directly to the affected person or the charity since commissions linked to traditional methods of making donations are reduced.

“Your actions make a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make”.

-Jane Goodall.

Many will find it hard to believe, but there were societies that, even while living in a significant level of poverty, had a better grasp of a principle that appears to be lost today: that one can truly comprehend the meaning of justice and injustice by internalizing what natural law is. Without natural law, there is no justice. Natural law implies that the human being has ownership over both oneself and the expression of oneself within a material realm. Charity is encompassed within this understanding. In ancient civilizations, such as in the England of the Germanic peoples - before the Norman conquest - donations directly reached those in need within a community. If someone dared to withhold another person’s money, private courts ensured that the aggressor made financial restitution to the affected party. Over the years, charitable organizations became more institutionalized entities, until even this concept became entangled in various state requirements and impositions.

Blockchain and crypto have come to simplify numerous procedures. Previously, it was much more complicated for individuals from various parts of the world to participate in charitable causes, primarily due to international financial barriers. It is even paradoxical, as these barriers are introduced to achieve more transparent, robust, and fair processes, but they end up creating precisely the opposite: inefficient and ideal scenarios that hinder humanitarian causes from receiving the necessary assistance. Through Blockchain, it is possible to attract a much larger donor base and receive funds with crucial speed in emergencies. It matters little or nothing if there are individuals from certain countries with resources to help, and banking possibilities are limited. If you have substantial capital in cryptocurrencies, all you need is a cell phone or a computer and an internet connection.

Given the rapid advancement of technology, charities dedicated to incredibly worthy causes have already emerged, ready to embrace donations through crypto assets. For instance, “Save the Children” tirelessly works towards enhancing the quality of life for children globally. Operating in over 120 countries, they welcome contributions in various cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, USDC, ADA, DOT, and XML – among others – and they even accept donations through NFTs. Additionally, other organizations that embrace cryptocurrencies include UNICEF - since 2019 -; “The Water Project”, which has been diligently working for years to ensure access to clean water for numerous African communities – as far back as 2015, they were accepting bitcoins for their “The Water Promise” initiative; “Fidelity Charitable”, a public charity that, between 2015 and 2019, received over $100 million in cryptocurrency donations, and “BitGive”, a non-profit organization established in 2013, which welcomes bitcoin donations and focuses on improving global public health, addressing challenges related to poverty, hunger, housing, and even concerns related to the preservation of habitats and the environment.

Philanthropy must be in good health. For this, there must be transparency and decentralization. In this context, Blockchain has emerged to provide a truly transformative boost, as it manages to capture the attention of millions of people by breaking international financial barriers and offering the ability to verify and track transactions in real time, thereby adding confidence. In our effort to foster efficient community participation and promote decentralized governance, our team considered developing a platform powered by the LOAD protocol. With this platform, we aim to provide benefits already explained in previous notes, such as economic fees and a wide repertoire of cryptocurrencies for buyers and sellers to trade freely. We also aspire to drive the creation of new local and global markets, along with communities of users who seek to leverage our technology to take a bold step toward the future of financial altruism.