31 July 2014 / New York Times – Bitcoin has found another taker.
On Wednesday, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, announced that it would allow people to make donations using Bitcoin, becoming the latest adopter of the virtual currency as a payment option.
“It has always been important to the foundation to make sure donating is as simple and inclusive as possible,” Lisa Gruwell, the chief revenue officer of Wikimedia, wrote in a blog post announcing the move. The foundation said that it had been asked to accept Bitcoin and that those requests, as well as recent guidelines from the Internal Revenue Service, persuaded it to accept the virtual currency.
Like many merchants that have adopted Bitcoin, Wikimedia has teamed up with Coinbase, a third-party payment processor that converts customers’ Bitcoins into dollars. Coinbase, which began with $25 million from the investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, is also working with Overstock, the online travel booking website Expedia and the satellite television provider Dish Network to help them accept the virtual currency. About two weeks ago, Dell announced that customers would be able to make purchases on its website using Bitcoin, claiming to be the biggest retailer yet to do so. In all, about 35,000 merchants use Coinbase’s payment tools, according to the company’s website….. Read more
