New Delhi: The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has announced to discontinue direct acceptance of cryptocurrency as donation. The WMF, the organisation behind Wikipedia, received around $130,000 in crypto donations last year. Cryptocurrency prices in India today (02 May 2022).

"We are making this decision based on recent feedback from those same communities. Specifically, we will be closing our Bitpay account, which will remove our ability to directly accept cryptocurrency as a method of donating," the foundation said in an update.

The WMF began accepting Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum donations in 2014. The foundations aid that it will "continue to monitor this issue, and appreciate the feedback and consideration given to this evolving matter by people across the Wikimedia movement".

"The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations. The decision was made based on a community request that the WMF no longer accept crypto donations, which came out of a three-month-long discussion that wrapped up earlier this month (April)," tweeted Molly White, a Wikipedia editor.

White, also the creator of Web3 Is Going Just Great', proposed the WMF stop taking cryptocurrency donations in January this year. Last month, Mozilla also decided that they will no longer accept proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrencies but will continue to accept proof-of-stake (PoS) ones.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 02, 2022 11:23 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).