Crypto philanthropy triumphs despite the adverse crypto winter
In her daughter’s biography, Marie Curie is quoted as saying, “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”
Despite facing discrimination due to her gender and Polish heritage, as well as enduring significant personal losses and the horrors of war, Marie Curie embraced every challenge as an opportunity to serve others.
To this day, Marie remains the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different natural sciences. Furthermore, the Marie Curie Cancer Charity continues her legacy by providing specialist care for the terminally ill.
Marie Curie’s achievements are testimony that triumph in the face of adversity is possible. And it would certainly seem (according to The Giving Block’s latest report) crypto philanthropy has taken a leaf out of Marie Curie’s playbook to defy the harsh and harrowing crypto winter.
Brace yourself, although I’ll keep it as short as possible, this next part doesn’t make for easy reading.
The crypto winter
In November 2021, Bitcoin rallied near a record high of $68,000 with analysts predicting even further rises in the coming weeks. How wrong they were. Because if they were to look outside the metaphorical window at that point in time, the first few snowflakes of winter were gently starting to fall.
Come December, inflation was soaring and news of rate rises to cool the economy meant Bitcoin fell 19% as the stock market sell-offs began. Despite many thinking it was the hedge against inflation, cryptocurrencies too fluctuated with macroeconomic factors.
While Bitcoin was slowly declining, both the stablecoin, TerraUSD, and Luna crypto network collapsed – plummeting the Luna coin from $119 to less than a cent before it was officially delisted. TerraUSD crashing was the catalyst that took down crypto lender Three Arrows Capital. After pausing withdrawals in June, Celsius (another crypto lender) filed for bankruptcy in July. BlockFi (yes, another crypto lender) was then rescued by a $400m bailout by FTX.
And then the unimaginable happened. BlockFi’s knight in shining armour, the $32bn FTX exchange, imploded (taking even more lenders with it). FTX’s CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), went from being Forbes’ October 2021 cover star, to being arrested on Dec 12 2022. The very same day he was subsequently charged with multiple wire and securities frauds, money laundering, and ‘swindled‘ $8bn of customer’s money (which could result in 115 years imprisonment) Bitcoin hit $17,000.
But… it didn’t stop the crypto philanthropists
Because, while the crypto market was seemingly doomed, crypto philanthropy unequivocally boomed, as you’re about to find out.
The Giving Block, a platform to help nonprofits rapidly accelerate their crypto adoption, released its 2023 annual report (Crypto Philanthropy Data, Trends & Predictions) which shows how “crypto generosity has matured to where it can withstand market volatility.”
In fact, The Giving Block saw one of the best years in the platform’s five-year history. This indeed bodes extremely well for the future – as the co-founders’ intro candidly states:
“If this is what a bad year looks like, then we look forward to the years to come.”
Download the report at: www.thegivingblock.com/annual-report