Wikimedia, the non-profit organization behind  Wikipedia, has announced its intention to stop accepting cryptocurrencies donations amid concern about their negative impact on the environment.

“We began our direct acceptance of cryptocurrency in 2014 based on requests from our volunteers and donor communities,” the organization said in a statement Sunday. 

“We are making this decision based on recent feedback from those same communities.”

The WMF will close its account on Bitpay, a crypto payment service provider, and its direct methods to accept cryptocurrencies as donations.

The build-up to the decision

In a proposal made earlier this year regarding whether or not the donation in cryptocurrencies should be disabled, over 400 users took part in the voting. The majority voted in favor of the proposal 232 to 94. Users who support the discontinuity of the process are primarily concerned about the energy-intensive mechanisms of the digital currency space.

However, some members in the Wikipedia community believe that there are less energy-consuming cryptocurrency options that they could adopt rather than imposing a total ban. 

Note, however, that this action will have little impact in the context of the WMF’s funding, as the total donations in crypto to the WMF in the last financial year made up only 0.08% of its overall revenue.