Cryptocurrencies aren't always about just making money — in this dive, we break down three crypto platforms that are donating crypto to animals in need.
If you’ve ever sat through one of David Attenborough’s documentaries, you’ll know that endangered animals are going extinct alarmingly fast. As usual, it’s (mostly) our fault.
Some animals were always going to go extinct, no matter how hard we tried. The number of unavoidable species extinctions is called the baseline extinction rate.
Scientists now estimate the rate at which endangered species are going extinct is increasing somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 times faster than the expected baseline extinction rate — which is a direct consequence of human activity.
The global population of some species, like the Javan rhino, have been reduced to double digits as a direct result of poaching. We have already driven several other species to extinction, like the Tasmanian Tiger and the Japanese Sea Lion.
The International Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species recently revealed that approximately 26,000 species are perilously close to going extinct.
But what does this all have to do with crypto, you may ask?
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Crypto Platforms Are Making Waves in the Charity Sector
Fortunately, some crypto-based charities are crafting innovative new strategies to combat our animal welfare woes.
As recently as last week, a cat and dog shelter in Scotland received 26 ETH as a donation. International Animal Rescue now accepts donations in more than 140 different cryptos, including BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC and BCH.
And in general, crypto donations are going up, animals or no animals. Some crypto platforms are bridging the gap between these established, global charities and our favorite digital currencies. The Giving Block is one such platform, which has already supported Save the Children and No Kid Hungry to accept donations in crypto.
The Wharton Business School received a $5 million donation in BTC in the spring, and Fidelity Charitable (which facilitated more than $9 billion in charitable donations in 2020) has received more than $150 million in crypto donations so far this year. That makes a 435% increase on the $28 million in crypto donated to charities during the previous year.
The American Red Cross, Save the Children and Action Against Hunger have also all set up mechanisms to accept crypto donations.
The millennial generation is driving this new trend of digital altruism. Millennials are far more likely to own crypto than any other generation, and nine in ten millennials regularly donate to charity.
A study by Artemis Strategy Group revealed that people who invest in crypto are more generous with their money than the average investor. An impressive 45% of crypto holders donated more than $1,000 to charity in 2020, compared to the 33% of investors who don’t own any crypto.
Donating to charity in crypto has some tax benefits as well. Profits from crypto are widely subject to capital gains tax, but charitable donations paid in crypto are eligible for capital gains relief in many parts of the world.
How are Crypto Platforms Supporting Animal Welfare Charities?
Most of the other crypto platforms aiming to support animal welfare charities focus on generating additional funding, usually via transaction fees. We’ve picked three of the best and most interesting platforms for you to look at.
We’ve also included a bonus NFT charity project at the end which is launching soon!
#1 - Pawthereum
Pawthereum is a community based Ethereum project focusing on supporting animal shelters and animal wellbeing.
If you caught the CoinMarketCap Recap podcast with Connor Sephton, you’ll no doubt be familiar with Pawthereum already.
The platform launched in October 2021, and its volunteer development team raised $70,000 during the pre-launch funding round. At the time of writing, Pawthereum has donated $229,000 to animal charities and shelters.
The project lead, Nawzad Amiri, says Pawthereum’s aims to become “a leading disruptor of charitable inclusion by utilizing blockchain technology to obtain funding, bypass the middleman, and donate directly to smaller animal shelters around the world who need assistance.”
— Pawthereum (@pawthereum) November 16, 2021Fun with cats! Community ambassador @ProbablyGMI with @NicolaGunn_ and @FyffeLindsay and Pinto, Taco, and Nacho 🐈 🐈 🐈⬛ at @EdinDogCatHome today 🥰 pic.twitter.com/rMkGn0t6SM
Pawthereum’s native token $PAWTH launched on October 10 on Uniswap and ShibaSwap.
Pawthereum supports animal charities by charging a 4% transaction fee every time PAWTH tokens change hands. Half of the transaction fee goes to a charity wallet, and the other half is shared between PAWTH token holders.
This allows token holders to earn some passive income while facilitating new donations to animal welfare projects. For now, none of the transaction fees goes to the team.
The volunteer team chooses which charities Pawthereum will donate to from a shortlist of community suggestions. They are also educating animal-based charities on the benefits of accepting crypto donations.
To see the latest proposals for the next round of donations, head over to the Pawthereum app.
The first round of animal shelter donations was for $10,000. The sum was split between six different animal shelters, including: Best Friends Animal Society, Sterling Animal Shelter, Wright-Way Rescue, Four Paws International, Muttville Senior Dog Rescue and Second Chance Rescue.
Following the first round, Pawthereum donated 26 ETH to the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home, a charity aiming to address pet poverty in Scotland. The shelter will use the donated ETH to fund its Pet Foodbank service for the entirety of 2022.
— Pawthereum (@pawthereum) November 16, 2021Pawthereum ❤️'s @EdinDogCatHome
Pawthereum ❤️'s saving Cats
Pawthereum even ❤️'s saving Dogs too 😉 pic.twitter.com/EoTrvX9AbP
Pawthereum has since committed to donating another £2,000 per month to support the ongoing growth of the foodbank.
If supporting animal welfare while earning passive income sounds good to you, the image below shows how to pick up some PAWTH tokens.
#2 - Red Panda Earth
Red Panda Earth focuses on saving endangered species and protecting natural ecosystems.
The project’s whitepaper describes its aim as: “we are here to help bandage up the damage that has already been done; and facilitate some aspect of healing, possibly even steer away any further harm to earth’s natural habitats and ecosystems.”
Red Panda Earth has so far adopted around 70 red pandas from zoos and wildlife parks all over the world, from Vancouver to Nepal. Of course, the adoption is only symbolic. The donated funds go toward the welfare of the red pandas.
The project also raised $3,000 for Red Panda Day in 2021, and recently partnered with the Binance Charity to help plant 10 million trees worldwide.
The REDPANDA token is an ERC-20 token hosted on Ethereum. 50% of the total supply was burned at launch, and 2% of every transaction is burned.
5% of the circulating supply is stored in a charity wallet, and all transaction fees above the 5% holding amount are donated to charities supporting the welfare of red pandas.
The REDPANDA token is available on Hotbit and a few other exchanges. There are currently around 9,000 token holders, and the token’s market cap is hovering around the $14 million mark.
To see the full list of Red Panda Token donations, check out the project’s donation tracker, pictured below.
The project’s roadmap is regularly updated and hosted on Trello.
#3 – The Altrucoin Protocol
As its name suggests, the Altrucoin protocol is a crypto project combining DeFi and altruism. It’s described on the official website as “a system of decentralized tools and tokens that support holders and charities.”
The protocol’s native token, ALTRUCOIN, sits on the Binance Smart Chain.
Every token transaction has a 10% transaction fee, which is split in the following ways:
- 5% is distributed between ALTRUCOIN holders;
- 2% is locked into a liquidity pool;
- 1% is shared among the development team;
- 1% is put toward marketing the protocolsl
- 1% goes to the charity wallet, and eventually to charity.
ALTRUCOIN holders can vote on which charities the protocol will support during the next donation round, as shown in the image below.
So far, the protocol has donated $25,750 to charitable causes, including a $10,000 donation to International Animal Rescue (IAR), and another $10,000 donation to Wildlife SOS.
IAR plans to use Altrucoin’s donation to build a sanctuary and hospital for animals injured during the building of infrastructure in Nosara, Costa Rica. A portion of the funds will go toward building safer infrastructure to reduce the number of animals being killed and injured in the first place.
Wildlife SOS will use Altrucoin’s $10,000 donation to expand its elephant hospital in Mathura, India. You might recognise Wildlife SOS as the charity who famously rescued Raju the elephant in 2014, who cried when his chains were removed.
For now, the developers are focusing on building their community, marketing the protocol and adding features like staking to the Altrucoin platform.
In time to come, the Altrucoin team hopes to develop the platform into a fully-fledged DeFi ecosystem by supporting crypto loans, among other features.
For more details on the Altrucoin protocol, check out the whitepaper.
BONUS #4 - Save the Ethimals NFTs
We elected not to include this project on the main list as hadn’t launched at the time of writing. However, it’s a unique, interesting, and creative idea, so it gets an honorary mention.
Save the Ethimals is taking an imaginative and pioneering approach to supporting animal welfare charities.
The platform works with digital artists to create and sell tradable NFTs depicting endangered species of animals, called Ethimals. The closer to extinction each animal is, the rarer the NFT is.
The first NFT minting will have a new launch date announced soon. Just over 3,000 NFTs will be up for grabs, depicting 210 different animals. Each NFT will cost around 0.08 ETH, which is worth around $330 at the time of writing. You’ll need a MetaMask wallet to take part.
50% of the ETH raised by the NFT sale will first go to a charity fund, and then on to the project’s charity partners.
So far, Save the Ethimals has partnerships with WWF, Four Paws, Buglife, Wildlife SOS, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Tigers4Ever and International Animal Rescue.
— Save the Ethimals NFT (@SaveTheEthimals) November 15, 2021We're absolutely over the 🌑 to be announcing that we are now official partners with International Animal Rescue (@IAR_updates)! 🦧
Together, we are here to help bridge the gap between technology and environmental communities to solve real world problems 🙌 #NFTCommunity pic.twitter.com/PFn1XU6DNu
The charity fund is on the Ethereum blockchain, allowing the Ethimal community to see how much is raised from each NFT sale, and how the funds are being spent. Payment receipts for every charitable donation will also be posted on the Work for Good site.
The 50% left over from the NFT sale will be distributed between the NFT artists and the development team.
The protocol also has a cool feature which will generate ongoing donations, in theory forever. Every time an Ethimal NFT is traded, a 2.5% transaction fee goes to Save the Ethimals. Half of this fee goes to animal charities, and the rest is split between the Ethimal NFT holders, the artists and the development team.
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