Wikipedia To Accept Bitcoin Donations Now

By Rishma Banerjee

Wikipedia, the globally known open source online encyclopedia is now accepting donations through bitcoin currency through a new collaboration with Coinbase.

This news was announced by the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns and curates Wikipedia, on its official blog. The reason, behind this movie, as explained by the organization was grassroots community support for the integration, saying that demand for bitcoin support led to discussions on the leadership level.

However, what makes this development more interesting is because of the apprehensive stance as has been assumed by the Foundation in the past about this same issue.
In March, the organization announced that it was beginning to discuss bitcoin donations, but co-founder Jimmy Wales later commented that this step taken by Wikimedia was a “cautious” approach.

Lisa Gruwell, who is the Wikimedia chief revenue officer said in a blog post that the discussion process was in-depth, but with more clarification available on the legal status of digital currency, Wikimedia had been able to move forward with the initiative. She wrote:

“Currently, we accept 13 different payment methods enabling donations from nearly every country in the world, and today, we’re adding one more: bitcoin.”

In a separate email sent to Wikipedia supporters, the organization clarified that the goal was to offer “flexible” payment options to those who wanted to donate in order to keep the online encyclopedia functional. Regarding bitcoin, the Foundation said that Wikipedia supporters will now be able to enjoy greater versatility in their donation options.

The Foundation leadership has collaborated with Coinbase and explained that the partnership was more a method for sidestepping some of the logistical needs that come with accepting bitcoin, which includes the occasional need to exchange bitcoin for fiat currency.

Their blog post reads:

“Using Coinbase, a bitcoin exchange, we’re able to immediately convert bitcoin to U.S. dollars, requiring minimal technical implementation on our end. Since we now also have guidance on how to account for bitcoin, there is a clear understanding of how to legally manage it.”

The director of business development at Coinbase, Adam White said that the Foundation was taking a slow and steady approach to ascertain that it maintained full legal compliance. Like with any option, users can choose to make either one-time or recurring donations to the free encyclopedia with bitcoins now.