Greenpeace No Longer Accepts BTC Donations

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Greenpeace, a world-wide known non-governmental environmental organization, has announced it no longer accepts Bitcoin as a method to make donations.

In an article published by the Financial Times, a representative of the organization has said the NGO has decided to stop accepting Bitcoin donations due to the cryptocurrency’s environmental implications:

“As the amount of energy needed to run Bitcoin became clearer, this policy became no longer tenable.”

As we all know, Bitcoin is based on blockchain technology, and in order to make the network work, miners need to run very powerful hardware (GPUs and dedicated ASIC devices) to process transactions. These devices have a very high energy consumption, which has a negative impact on the environment.

This is actually the reason why Elon Musk, the CEO of US electric car manufacturer Tesla, recently announced the company had decided to also stop accepting BTC as a means of payment for its vehicles. The decision makes sense, as the company makes “green” cars that do not use any fossil fuel, so accepting a coin associated to pollution somehow could affect the company’s reputation.

People could make Bitcoin donations to Greenpeace since 2014, when its US division started accepting the digital asset.