March Highlights: Crypto for Good
All things important that happened in March
With so much happening in the crypto space I’ve decided to publish a monthly digest of all things important that happened in (crypto+good) for that month. I’m starting off with March, expect the monthly digest on the last day of every month.
March Highlights👇
Crypto fundraising for Ukraine has been the most dominant event in March. Over $125 million have been raised through various fundraising drives including NFT auctions and direct donations to various crypto fundraisers.
Ukraine legalized Crypto on March 16th by passing the law on Virtual Assets. Under the new law foreign and Ukrainian crypto companies will be able to operate legally, while Ukrainians will have convenient and secure access to the global market for virtual assets. More on this here
First-ever country to launch an official NFT collection. NFTs have emerged to be a massive force for good, they have been instrumental in generating millions of dollars for financing social impact. The government of Ukraine launched its official NFT collection as a way to document the memories of war forever and to fundraise for their war efforts. 100% funds from the NFT sale will go directly to the official cryptocurrency accounts held by the Ukraine Government for humanitarian purposes.
Giving Block a pioneering leader in making crypto donations accessible to 1000+ nonprofits got acquired by Shift4. Giving Block was founded in 2018 and has played a big role in making nonprofits crypto ready by providing tools, support and exposure. Their acquisition with Shift4 was marked by 10M in matching crypto donations by Shift4 CEO
Stripe, the leading online payment platform launched a new feature that enables crypto businesses to process payments for fiat currencies globally through a single integration. To mark the occasion, Stripe in partnership with Nifty Gateway auctioned an NFT with 100% funds from the primary sale to be donated to Watsi, a US nonprofit, crowdfunding healthcare for people around the world. The NFT sale raised over $50K for Watsi.
Not Your Bro NFT collection is another one of the mission driven NFT collections. Launched by two women from Australia the collection is focused on empowerment and celebration of all Women and LGBTQIA. 10% of mint proceeds were donated to nonprofits as the collection continues to raise awareness and build a community around the cause.
Gitcoin Grants round 13 culminated on March 24th funding over 1000 grants aimed at public goods in web3 and causes. Gitcoin is an organization that funds people and orgs that are building open source software, tools, media and other public goods in the web3 space. They have recently started including non web3 social good projects. Individual donations to the grantees are matched using quadratic funding. For the Gitcoin grants13, causes included were from areas : Climate Solutions, Support For Ukraine and Longevity. You can explore all the grants here. I plan to dig in more on Gitcoin grants and quadratic funding, expect an article soon.
Time magazine features Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum has emerged to be the bedrock for all kinds of new tech projects like the NFTs, DeFI (decentralized finance), DAO (decentralized autonomous orgs) etc. In the article Vitalik expresses concerns on Ethereum’s current use as he had hoped the blockchain to be the launchpad for all sorts of sociopolitical experimentation. The article is a must read.
Well that wraps up March. For the month of April I’m digging into DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). They are emerging to be the new model for people to organize for causes. If you know any interesting social impact DAOs I should interview or you want to learn more about, please leave a comment.
If you have any questions or ideas reach out to me on Twitter or leave a comment on my Substack.