Austin Community Foundation Garners a Hefty Crypto Donation

The Austin Community Foundation has garnered a crypto-based gift worth more than $1 million USD. The donor remains anonymous at the time of writing, though we know he (or she) may have gotten involved in crypto at an early stage.

Austin Community Foundation Is Crypto Wealthy

The person opened a donor advised fund with Austin Community, which allows individuals to decide how to send money to various nonprofits across the country. The big clincher is that all money offered to these nonprofits is tax deductible, and all crypto donations are not subject to capital gains taxes, making crypto something of a big attraction for standard investors and donors.

Among the organizations that Austin Community processes financial transactions for include Statesman Season for Caring, a holiday-based philanthropy project.

As time has gone by, crypto donations have become more and more mainstream. In addition, Austin is becoming a major financial and tech hub. The region has seen several crypto-based projects come into development over the years. Cybil Guess – vice president of donor relations for Austin Community Foundation – explained in a statement:

Austin really is a tech hub and a cryptocurrency hub. As the local community foundation, we felt like it was important to understand and build the capability to accept cryptocurrency if this is the type of wealth that exists in this community.

But while it is becoming more popular to send crypto donations, Guess explained that many nonprofits are still not set up to accept crypto. Austin Community has been working on this with several projects throughout the United States, though doing so can be complicated and time consuming. Right now, Austin Community accepts a wide range of cryptocurrencies including BTC, ETH and LTC.

In addition, donors are not allowed to be anonymous when giving to the Foundation. The company also utilizes the services of a third-party firm known as Giving Block, which converts all crypto donations immediately into fiat. The company has stated that while it is open to crypto, it is concerned about volatility, and converts everything immediately into cash because they don’t want to run the risk of losing profit should the price of the donated crypto fall.

Things Are Still Kind of Shaky

Guess says:

At this point, we don’t want to take that risk.

In an interview, Guess compared accepting crypto to accepting stock. While the arena is new and has a reputation for attracting criminal and illicit behavior, Guess says this is incorrect, and that all people who think this way simply don’t understand what crypto is all about. To prevent any sort of malicious activity, the company engages in several KYC (know your customer) protocols to ensure all crypto funds come from clean sources and that the donors in question are who they say they are.

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