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Wikimedia President Jimmy Wales is excited to discover the world of bitcoin, and while doing so, he’s accidentally started a bitcoin donation campaign by simply sharing his bitcoin address on social media.
At the time of this writing, Wales’ bitcoin address has received over 10 BTC from members of the community, translating to over $6,000 USD and counting.
That’s certainly a difference from the 0.1 BTC Wales started off with this weekend, and it’s all going to a good cause: Wikipedia.
The bitcoin community is cleverly using this as an opportunity to nudge Wikimedia into integrating bitcoin donations to the online encyclopedia. And while the current donations being made will go to Wikipedia, Wales said on Twitter today that “No decision has been made for Wikipedia to accept BTC!”
If you haven’t already noticed, the bitcoin community is pretty giving. And if history is anything to go by, they won’t stop until they get what they want.
For example, just this weekend the community has contributed over 44 BTC ($27k+ USD) to Dorian Nakamoto, the man Newsweek claims to be the creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The fundraiser was used as a collective apology and token of good faith on behalf of the whole bitcoinosphere for having his privacy invaded by the mainstream media.
Do you think Wikipedia is on the verge of accepting bitcoin donations?
binaryphile 
The way Jimmy’s talking about the whole thing, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that he’ll decide to accept it for Wikipedia donations. That’s ok, though. You don’t see bitcoin making personal appeals for donations every time you visit. 😉
How is donating the money to Wikipedia “a good cause”? The Wikimedia Foundation spends less than 51% of its revenues from donations on the actual program services that every 501(c)(3) is required to report as accomplishing the organization’s mission. It is nearly impossible to find a substantial donor to the WMF who expresses any concern at all about this abysmal program efficiency ratio. (Most legitimate charitable educational organizations aim for program efficiency ratios north of 80% or even 90%, not 51%.) Why would donors to the WMF happily look the other way when presented the fact that more than 49 cents of every dollar they donate is being hoarded or spent on personnel and activities that don’t fulfill the mission of the organization? I think it’s because the people who think Wikipedia is an “encyclopedia” are the same types who don’t care where their donation dollars are actually going.