Mozilla Firefox is no longer accepting crypto donation following recent community backlash
On the verge of the new year, Mozilla broke loose all hell when it reminded people with a playful tweet that it was accepting cryptocurrency donations, with Mozilla founderJamie Zawinskiand many others brutally criticizing the tweet’s meme-ified “dabble in dogecoin” and “HODLingsome Bitcoin” language. As such, the company has decided to review its practice and is suspending cryptocoin donations for the time being (viaThe Verge).
In a series of tweets, Mozilla said that it still thinks that “Decentralized web technology continues to be an important area for us to explore, but a lot has changed since we started accepting crypto donations.” The discussion following last week’s tweet “led to an important discussion about cryptocurrency’s environmental impact,” with the company saying that it listens and is taking action.
As it stands, the company has startedaccepting cryptocoin donationsas far back as 2014, when crypto was still new and exciting and it wasn’t clear what a big impact on the environment it can have (at least when looking at established so-calledproof-of-workcurrencies like Bitcoin). With today’s crypto landscape looking vastly different, it’s a good idea to re-evaluate how the company wants to use the technology.
Notably, the company has never held on to any of the donated cryptocoins itself. Its payment processor automatically converts donated coins into their current equivalent in US dollars, giving the company instant access to funds without fluctuations.
Mozilla founder Zawinski, who left the company as early as 1999, is happy to see the change. In apost on his personal blog, he writes that “Cryptocurrencies are not only an apocalyptic ecological disaster, and a greater-fool pyramid scheme, but are also incredibly toxic to the open web, another ideal that Mozilla used to support. So I hope that after they ‘conduct their review’, the conclusion they reach is the obvious one: ‘Bury it in the desert. Wear gloves,’” citing arelevant XKCD comic.
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