The American arm of non-governmental multinational environmental organization Greenpeace has announced it will stop accepting bitcoin donations because of concerns about the cryptocurrency’s negative impact on the environment.
According to Financial Times, a spokesperson from Greenpeace USA said, “As the amount of energy needed to run bitcoin became clearer, this policy became no longer tenable.” This ultimately led to the decision of the organization to stay away from the crypto.
Back in 2014, Greenpeace started accepting bitcoin donations through payments processor BitPay but as of press time, on the donation page, it is stated that Greenpeace is no longer accepting bitcoin or any other crypto.
Greenpeace totally pulling the plug on bitcoin?
As if the development wasn’t already enough of a problem for bitcoin, the initial announcement of support of Greenpeace for the cryptocurrency was also removed from its website.
The now-scrapped 2014 announcement read, “BitPay’s reputation as a trusted and secure third-party bitcoin payment processor made it easy for us to begin accepting bitcoin thus opening us up to new markets and donors.”
Back then, Greenpeace USA director for online strategy Ben Kroetz said they are a completely independent organization and they don’t take money from corporations or governments and they rely primarily on individual donations.
This is why the organization’s decision comes as a surprise to a lot of people.
Bitcoin should die
Environmental concerns that haunt Bitcoin and its mining process now seem to outweigh the benefits of exposure to new markets and donors.
In line with this matter, Larisa Yarovaya, a former Russian Paralympic swimmer and lecturer at Southampton University, said bitcoin “should die for the common good.” Yarovaya thinks the crypto could be the first inefficient version of disruptive technology.
Meanwhile, pundits are now paying close attention to this development and the effects it could have on the still-recovering price of bitcoin which stands at $40,149 as of press time.
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