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El Salvador Children’s Hospital Receives Over 1 BTC Donation From US Nonprofit

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The Liberland Aid Foundation donated over an entire bitcoin to the Benjamin Bloom National Children’s Hospital.

  • A major children’s hospital in El Salvador has received more than one bitcoin as a donation from a U.S.-based nonprofit.
  • The Benjamin Bloom National Childrens’ Hospital provides essential care for children in need of intensive treatment in the Central American country.
  • The donor, Liberland Aid Foundation, was founded by supporters of the Free Republic of Liberland.

The Benjamin Bloom National Childrens’ Hospital in El Salvador has received over 1 BTC donation from the Liberland Aid Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, according to a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

“I am honored to be present for this historic moment,” said Joey Langenbrunner, LAF Chairman. “This initiative has allowed Liberland citizens the opportunity to not only give back, but also to show the power of what Bitcoin can do to empower the people of El Salvador.”

The American 501c(3) voluntary charity was instituted by supporters of a new micronation located between Serbia and Croatia, the Free Republic of Liberland. The donation was performed at a ceremony on November 19, where the managing director of Liberland Aid Foundation, Stephen Wood, sent the Bitcoin transaction live. The move was prompted by El Salvador’s recognition of bitcoin as legal tender, the foundation said, which led supporters of Liberland’s charity arm to work directly with the Central American country’s Ministry of Health.

The Benjamin Bloom National Childrens’ Hospital cares for children in need of severe treatment and hospitalization. It is the largest and most modern children’s hospital in the region, headquartered in a ten-story building in San Salvador, El Salvador.

“We demonstrated that bitcoin can do a lot of good things…guys from Liberland…they donated one full bitcoin for the children’s hospital,” the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, said at the closing event of Bitcoin Week on November 20.

The Bitcoin Week took place in the Central American country last week, gathering industry experts, developers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts. It hosted the Latin American Bitcoin and Blockchain Conference (LABITCONF) and the Adopting Bitcoin Lightning summit, among other events.

Human Trafficking Institute To Accept Bitcoin Donations

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The NGO will accept bitcoin donations both on-chain and through the Lightning Network leveraging OpenNode.

  • The Human Trafficking Institute will begin accepting bitcoin donations.
  • Payments on the Bitcoin and Lightning networks will be possible.
  • The new donation vehicle will be made possible by OpenNode, a Bitcoin payment infrastructure provider.

The Human Trafficking Institute (HTI) will start accepting bitcoin donations, according to a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine. The HTI will leverage OpenNode’s bitcoin payments technology to accept both on-chain and Lightning Network BTC donations. It is unclear whether the institute will hold the received bitcoin long term.

“The Human Trafficking Institute is committed to solving a global issue with support from the only currency that can be used around the world,” per the statement.

The HTI works with partner countries to reduce human trafficking by establishing specialized units to enforce anti-trafficking laws, creating academies to train and equip them, and embedding experts within the teams to work cases.

“We’re excited to partner with OpenNode to provide a new pathway for our donors to support our work at the Human Trafficking Institute,” Victor Boutros, CEO of Human Trafficking Institute, said in the statement. “We believe in the funding potential that Bitcoin can provide for our organization as we continue our work in decimating trafficking at its source by working within criminal justice systems to prosecute traffickers.”

The new donation vehicle will allow supporters to donate sound money from anywhere in the world through the permissionless and uncensorable Bitcoin network. Lightning payments will also be available, enabling instant donations at virtually no cost to empower the institution’s humanitarian work of stopping traffickers and freeing victims.

“Each trafficker stopped means future victims don’t have to endure the trauma of trafficking or experience the struggle of recovery,” Boutros added.

OpenNode is a payment infrastructure provider that enables businesses to accept bitcoin as payment by reducing friction between traditional currencies and the Bitcoin network. The company was founded in 2018 and has since allowed merchants to benefit from instant settlement and low transaction costs made possible by the world’s best monetary network.

Kraken Donates $150,000 In Bitcoin To Black Bitcoin Billionaire Group

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The bitcoin exchange gave a grant to the group early this summer, totaling 4.5 BTC at the time.

  • Kraken announced a $150,000 grant diversity-focused Bitcoin group Black Bitcoin Billionaire.
  • The grant was commissioned earlier this summer at a total amount of 4.5 BTC.
  • Black Bitcoin Billionaire will invest the funding into empowering projects and services in the Black tech community.

Bitcoin exchange Kraken has announced a $150,000 grant to Black Bitcoin Billionaire, an organization focused on promoting inclusion and diversity in the Bitcoin space. The grant was commissioned early this summer, Bitcoin Magazine learned, for a total amount of 4.5 BTC.

“We are fundamentally about education and supporting the Black Bitcoin community,” said Lamar Wilson, co-founder of Black Bitcoin Billionaire, in the announcement. “By working with companies like Kraken, we will be able to invest in technology that will develop ideas into tangible products or services. We couldn’t be more excited.”

The group will use the received funds at their discretion, Kraken said, to fund projects from Bitcoin entrepreneurs of minority communities. The grant will support Wilson and Isaiah Jackson — also a co-founder of Black Bitcoin Billionaire — to launch a series of three Tech Demo Days, a pitch competition that aims to provide funding to Black tech companies.

“In 2020, approximately 13% of black households in the U.S. were unbanked. This is a massive failing of our legacy financial system, for which there is no public alternative of last resort,” said Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, per the announcement.

“Being unbanked is costly and it disproportionately affects our poor and minority communities. Bitcoin offers a reprieve to the estimated 1.7 billion unbanked adults in the world – a new financial system by the people, for the people. The only barrier now is education,” Powell added.

The first Demo Day will take place on October 20, 2021. The initiative will seek to support some of the most innovative products and services from the Black community with exposure and bitcoin, according to its website.

Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Foundation To Accept Bitcoin Donations

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The 501(c)3 organization has begun accepting bitcoin and cryptocurrency donations through a partnership with The Giving Block.

  • Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Foundation announced they have started accepting bitcoin donations.
  • The nonprofit organization supports the needs of patients and families of the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.
  • The move aims to provide donors with an alternative and tax-advantageous donation vehicle. It is unclear if the organization will hold BTC.

Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization focused on raising funds for the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital patients, announced that it has started accepting bitcoin donations.

“We are so excited to begin accepting cryptocurrencies as a donation method to benefit the children and families we serve every day,” said Michelle Boggs, president of Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Foundation, in the announcement. “We hope that by adding this method of giving, we will reach more people who want to support the life-saving work of our hospital, and do so in a fast, easy, secure transaction.”

By accepting bitcoin, the foundation aims to provide donors with an alternative method for giving to a good cause. The nonprofit is dedicated to raising funds for the patients of the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, enabling disadvantaged families’ children to receive good healthcare.

Nicklaus Children’s now offers supporters that hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies the option to donate using their preferred cryptocurrency in a tax-efficient way since they are tax-deductible on the donor’s tax returns. The new donation method will be made possible through a partnership with The Giving Block.

The foundation is among the first healthcare nonprofits in South Florida to begin accepting bitcoin donations. However, whether the nonprofit will hold the BTC received as a donation or instantly convert it to USD is unclear.

There are plenty of advantages for nonprofits to hold bitcoin long term instead of immediately converting it to cash, like charity: water recently realized after receiving BTC donations since 2014. After seeing that it missed bitcoin’s exponential price rise over the years, charity: water championed a HODL MODL charity model with its Bitcoin Water Trust, which seeks to hold all bitcoin received until 2025.

The University Of Pennsylvania Continues to Hold Donated Bitcoin

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The University of Pennsylvania confirmed today it still holds part of a $5 million donation it received earlier this year in Bitcoin.

The University of Pennsylvania confirmed today it still holds part of a $5 million donation it received earlier this year in Bitcoin.

As reported by the New York Times, John Zeller, senior vice president alumni relations at the university, stated that this decision was partly informed by the wishes of the anonymous donor. 

“The donor’s goal was to make a gift of that magnitude, a promotable gift, to say, ‘If you’re interested, we’re in the crypto world, and we can accept it.'” 

The bitcoin gift was announced by the university with the amount of publicity usually reserved for larger donations of fiat investments such as stocks, bonds and real estate, but of note is that it did not follow all of the usual processes. 

Zeller commented, “Our policy had been to traditionally sell everything immediately, even if it had been $5 million in stock.”

As for Bitcoin, however, Zeller said, “We liquidated some; we’re holding some.”

As detailed in the news article, the development follows years of wider discussion among nonprofits about how they should treat donations made in the cryptocurrency.

Lesser discussed in recent years have been benefits for donors, such as the ability to void capital gains taxes when bitcoin is donated to a charity.

Perhaps the greatest benefit, however, lies with international donations made in bitcoin, as final settlement of those donations can occur in as few as 10 minutes for extremely low fees.

Whereas, all international fiat transfers are subject to extremely high fees and final settlement between central banks takes days (at best) and can take weeks and even months. Some would argue, due to the invariable threat of confiscation, final settlement in the fiat world never really occurs at all. 

Therefore, it is becoming more widely believed that bitcoin can be a preferable donation strategy for international aid organizations.

Tom Pageler, chief executive of Prime Trust, a firm that custodies bitcoin on behalf of businesses and donors such as UNICEF, said in an interview with the publication: “You can have the local office in the region convert the crypto into the local currency, and now you don’t have to pay the wire fees on the transfers.” 

Pageler continued: “You can get money there immediately.”

Large donor-advised funds such as Fidelity Charitable (over $35 billion in assets) and Schwab Charitable ($17 billion) both accept and have seen an increase in bitcoin donations. 

According to a spokesperson Stephen Austin, Fidelity received $13 million in cryptocurrency donations in 2019, $28 million in 2020, and $150 million so far this year. It is unclear what percentage of these donations were made in bitcoin.

John Zeller, who helped facilitate the bitcoin donation to Penn, concluded, “It’s very nice to have the capacity to do it when a donor says, ‘I have some Bitcoin.’”

“We can accept it now without it grinding the university to a halt.”