Crypto Fundraising for India's COVID Relief
Crypto is no funny money, it saves real lives
This fundraising campaign piqued my interest in crypto and how it can make real impact. The campaign was initiated, promoted and backed by folks from the crypto community including the likes of Vitalik Buterin, Founder of Ethereum and Balaji, former CTO of Coinbase. The campaign spread like wildfire and has generated over USD 1 billion so far.
I came across this crypto fundraiser for India COVID Relief on Twitter. The campaign had an enormous appeal, all the bigwigs on Twitter were promoting it. I was initially skeptical about this campaign and wasn’t sure how their Twitter mobilization and Crypto donations would translate into purchasing oxygens and other medical supplies for people in India.
Having worked in India’s nonprofit sector I know that nonprofits in India are highly regulated when it comes to receiving funds from foreign sources. Only nonprofits with FCRA approval can receive foreign donations. I was curious to see how all the good intentions and energy online would translate into real relief on the ground. I decided to follow the campaign and the money trail. Crypto → INR.
The Tweet that launched the fundraiser
The campaign team generates an address for each type of cryptocurrency they’re accepting donations in. The way it works is that people wanting to donate crypto will use their wallets to transfer money to those addresses.
The team planned to raise a big multi-million dollar amount and in the world of crypto security of your funds is always on top of mind. To ensure trust and prevent a rouge member from taking the funds the team used a Gnosis Multi-Signature wallet. Think of it as the crypto world equivalent of a joint account where the signatures of multiple folks are needed to transfer the money ahead.
They convert their crypto donations into real money aka Fiat. Not only does this keep things transparent it also signals to a lot of folks sitting on the sidelines that crypto is real and even large amounts of it can be exchanged into real dollars and rupees.
The fundraising team set up a website to provide full transparency - crypto received to monies donated. They are also working with a FCRA compliant nonprofit in India to procure oxygen and other supplies. https://cryptorelief.in/transparency
Another important thing I’ll like to highlight about this campaign is that since cryptocurrencies are highly volatile the team behind this campaign converted the cryptocurrencies into a stable coin (USDC). A stable coin is a crypto token that is pegged to the value of a Fiat currency like the USD so its value is not volatile.
Thanks to the crypto community for showing us how to flawlessly execute a distributed crypto fundraiser. Personally, every step of it has been a learning for me and this can work as a building block for a more standardized framework for crypto fundraising.
Update, May 12, 2021: Vitalik Buterin, Founder of Ethereum made a donation of $1 Billion towards the India’s Crypto Covid Relief Fund.
Subscribe to learn about exciting developments in Crypto and Social Good.
If you have any questions or ideas reach out to me on Twitter.