Wikipedia Scores $140.000 in Bitcoin Donations

Just over a week ago, Wikipedia announced that it would now be accepting donations in form of bitcoins. The first week of of the new donation system is over and according to Coinbase, Wikipedia made a solid $140.000 worth of donations in bitcoin during that time.

“The news as suggest the staying power of digital currency donations, owing to the combination of tax benefits and transaction cost savings.”  said CoinDesk, a publication that tracks digital currencies.

Wikipedia itself doesn’t plan to keep the donated bitcoins, but rather convert them into dollars as they get them. Having raised 19.7 million in overall donations last year, the new 140 thousand doesn’t sound like much. But considering that they got it in just one week, makes the whole things somewhat more of an accomplishment.

Coinbase, the company used by Wikipedia, doesn’t charge non-profit organisations any transaction fees. So all donations will go directly and fully to Wikipedia.

We’ve seen massive bursts of donations before when companies and groups start to accept them, but over time they start to fade out. We can most likely expect the same here. Wikipedia being run on pure donations, will surely be very happy about each and every donation they get, digital or traditional.

Thank you TechCrunch for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Bitcoin.