Following many months of debate the Wikimedia Foundation has officially decided that it will no longer accept donations in cryptocurrency.

The foundation, which manages Wikipedia, announced that it would be hosting discussions about the advantages and drawbacks of accepting cryptocurrency donations during April. At the weekend, the foundation announced the official shuttering of the cryptocurrency donation option.

“The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to discontinue direct acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of donating. We began our direct acceptance of cryptocurrency in 2014 based on requests from our volunteers and donor communities. We are making this decision based on recent feedback from those same communities. Specifically, we will be closing our Bitpay account, which will remove our ability to directly accept cryptocurrency as a method of donating,” the foundation said.

Will this decision have a noticeable effect on Wikimedia? That’s highly unlikely.

In a post from January, Wikimedia revealed that in the 2021 financial year only $130 000 in cryptocurrency donations were made. This represents 0.08 percent of the Wikimedia Foundation’s revenue for the year. In addition, only 347 cryptocurrency donations were made throughout 2021. The foundation also never held onto crypto choosing instead to convert donations to fiat on the spot.

Beyond that, environmental concerns and the prevalence of cryptocurrency scams were also reasons behind the Wikimedia Foundation’s decision.

While the foundation said that it would continue to monitor the issue and remain flexible to donors and volunteers, we don’t expect the foundation to reverse this decision.