As the world keeps fighting the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals, small businesses, testing kit manufacturers, and the economy as a whole is struggling to keep up. In this scenario, major corporations from across the world have come up and offered their help to fight the pandemic. The crypto industry has also been in the limelight for providing crucial assistance to all sectors in these difficult times. In this article, we have covered the major donations from prominent players in the crypto community.
US-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance was among the first few organizations to offer help. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao acted as early as Jan 25th, and announced a $1.5 million (10M RMB) grant to help Chinese authorities purchase essential medical equipment to cope up with the then rapid spread rate of the virus in China.
For #Wuhan, not realistic to do crypto to end beneficiaries.
Binance pledged 10m RMB ($1.5m USD) to help #coronavirus victims.
We didn’t make any announcements. But BCF/Binance team has been busy for the last few days.
Still need help to arrange logistics locally.🙋♀️ https://t.co/UH6FXgVSrX
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) January 25, 2020
Under the initiative named “Binance for Wuhan”, CZ, as he is fondly called in the crypto community, started off the campaign by supplying 20,000 testing kits, 366,000 pairs of gloves, 5,280 bottles of hand sanitizer and 388 oxygen concentrators apart from other essentials.
At the beginning of this month, the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) launched the XLM-donation-matching program, which is backed by Stellar-based Lumentrhopy. The idea was to help non-profit organizations accept Stellar’s native token Lumen. Under this initiative, the SDF collaborated with the Tor project to match all XLM donations on a 1:1 basis.
Now through the end of April, XLM donations to the Tor Project will be matched by @StellarOrg.
"There is no better time than now to dig deep and magnify the Stellar community’s impact on these nonprofits." https://t.co/YcO6WPr255
Donate now: https://t.co/qe9Jp8vJny pic.twitter.com/nFnlDlPJXC
— The Tor Project (@torproject) April 3, 2020
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The Giving Block, a firm that helps nonprofits to accept crypto donations, started a campaign named #cryptoCOVID19, It has already collaborated with the likes of Brave, Gemini and Axiom Finance in a quest to raise $500,000 in crypto donations. On the other hand, a company named Gitcoin has already donated $100,000 in Ether (ETH) on the Dai platform, as a part of this initiative.
Ripple Labs has also donated a handsome amount of $200,000 amid the global health crisis. It tweeted that the $100K each is intended to be donated to the Tipping Point Emergency’s Response Fund and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s COVID Regional Response Fund respectively.
In these challenging times, Ripple is committed to being part of the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re starting in our own backyard with $100K donations each to @tippingpoint's COVID emergency response fund and @siliconvalleycf’s COVID Regional Response Fund. (1/2)
— Ripple (@Ripple) March 25, 2020
Other crypto firms like BitMex and Golem have also done their part in providing donations in order to help the world fight this unprecedented trouble.
As the crypto community steps up along with other industrial sectors to do its bit in helping the frontline fighters against the coronavirus, we hope to overcome this situation and come back to normalcy. Stay safe!