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Shacklewell Lane Mosque, which is based in the east end of London, recently announced that it would begin to accept cryptocurrency donations. Although not a mainstream idea yet, charities have generally had great success with accepting donations in the form of cryptocurrency. Shacklewell Lane Mosque is no exception to this. The only surprise was the degree to which the proposal would gain popularity among the community of adherents.
Over four times as many donations in cryptocurrency as fiat money
The holy month of Ramadan is not only a month of fasting but also of charity and compassion. During this month, many mosques and Islamic charities call on adherents of the Muslim faith to donate to various humanitarian causes. Typically, these donations come in the form of fiat money. With the Shacklewell Lane Mosque accepting cryptocurrency donations, however, this changed. During the month of Ramadan, the mosque received a total of £3,460 in fiat money donations. That is in and of itself a decent amount of money for a local mosque to collect in one month. However, the mosque also received 24 cryptocurrency donations. Can you guess how much money those donations amounted to? £13,983. Just one individual donated what amounted to £5,200 in cryptocurrency tokens in one single transaction. The majority of the cryptocurrency donations were made in the most popular tokens, like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Skeptics are silenced by the success
Erkin Guney is the chairman of Shacklewell Lane Mosque, and although he was a fan of the initiative, not even he expected it to become such a roaring success. In an interview with iNews, Guney expressed how surprised he was when he saw the number of cryptocurrency donations they received compared to traditional donations. Even now, after the month of Ramadan has ended, the mosque continues to receive cryptocurrency donations from its adherents. There are two kinds of charitable donations within Islam, one is the voluntary donation of Sadaqah, the other is the obligatory donation of Zakat. Zakat is 2.5% of a Muslim’s annual income or wealth. Currently, Shacklewell Lane Mosque is still receiving Sadaqah in the form of cryptocurrency.
The man behind the idea
Gurmit Singh founded the blockchain company Combo Innovations and was the man to come up with the idea of mosques accepting cryptocurrency donations. He knew that many Muslims were using cryptocurrency and that there was an untapped market for mosques to benefit from. Not only would the idea of accepting cryptocurrency donations make it easier and more convenient for Muslims to donate, seeing as they would not have to convert their tokens to fiat money first, but it would also open the door for international donations to the mosque. International donors would benefit from the faster and cheaper transactions that cryptocurrency payments offer them, compared to traditional bank transfers. Combo Innovations knew that not many at the mosque were trained in the concept of cryptocurrency, so the company took it upon themselves to set up the way to accept the donations. Singh and his colleagues set up Crypto Zakat and Crypto Sadaqah in collaboration with Zayd al Khair, who is the Islamic advisor to Shacklewell Lane Mosque.
It is not secret that things are moving pretty fast in the cryptocurrency space. It can sometimes be hard to keep up — unless you are an avid reader of this blog of course. Like with any other industry, however, there are a number of events and seminars that it would be wise to attend if you want to stay abreast of the latest trends and developments in the crypto-space. Events are the places where you can network with like minded professionals and enthusiasts, and where you can learn about new innovations before they go mainstream. We have compiled a list of some of the events you might want to keep an eye on in the last week of July.
Blockchain Visionary Summit
The Blockchain Visionary Summit is, as the name implies, for the visionaries within the blockchain space. The conference features a string of experts in the field, who are working for reputable companies, and will be presenting interesting facts and ideas. The topics that will be covered at the Blockchain Visionary Summit include how to source skilled developers for your blockchain project, how to train your team members so that they are up to speed, how blockchain technology as a whole will affect existing businesses and industries, how to solve some of the recurring problems in the world of cryptocurrency, how blockchain will best be integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT), when and how cryptocurrency will become mainstream, how potential investors assess new projects before funding them, and how to market your project.
NIFTY Conference + Hackathon
The NIFTY Conference + Hackathon is a two-in-one event. Half of it will concentrate on how the gaming industry will be changed with the emergence of blockchain-based platforms. The second half of the event will revolve around the ERC721 standards, and how they affect the gaming industry as well. Overall, the gaming industry will not only see massive changes as a result of blockchain integration, but the huge active audience in the industry will also help propel new blockchain ventures in return.
Crypto Sydney – SWIPECrypto, Edenchain
Crypto Sydney is hosted by BLOCKLabs Incubator, and is a recurring conference series that concentrate on the latest development in blockchain and cryptocurrency. Seen as one of the most popular event of its kind, Crypto Sydney brings together some of the brightest talent in the crypto-sphere. Every month, these bright minds gather at Crypto Sydney to give their opinion on various news stories, and many discussions are sparked around the latest innovations in blockchain technology.
Blockchain Conference 2018
If you are a decision maker in business, then the Blockchain Conference 2018 is the place for you to be. The format of this event is a no-nonsense approach to the cryptocurrency space, where both the positive as well as the negative aspects of it are covered. Any negative aspects are brought up in discussion in order to identify possible solutions to them. A number of experts will be present to give talks on some of the new breakthroughs in the business side of cryptocurrency and blockchain.
Charities
While a lot of cryptocurrency traders get a bad rep due to some of the shadier elements of the community, quite a few of them are actually charitable. The only problem is that up until now, they have had issues with being able to donate to charities. A great example of this is The Pineapple Fund, which donated no less than $55 million to charities last year. In response to this interest from the cryptocurrency community, many charities have now begun to accept donations in the form of crypto-tokens. Other charities have taken a different approach. UNICEF famously set up a website where visitors could lend their processing power to help the charity mine for cryptocurrency.
Freelancers
The gig market economy is booming like never before, and cryptocurrency transactions have proven to be a perfect match for the freelancer industry. In the past, there have been some difficulties for freelancers and employers when it came to negotiating contracts. Now, however, Ethereum’s smart contract technology makes the if/then premise of the contracts freelancing much more transparent. In addition, the fact that cryptocurrency transactions are both cheaper and faster than traditional financial transactions makes it all the more attractive to all parties involved. As an added bonus, the bounty hunting occupation within the cryptocurrency space is a perfect example of microtasking using cryptocurrency.
Criminals
There is always another side to the coin, and the cryptocurrency space is no exception to this. As everyone who has read crypto-news are no doubt aware of, there have been numerous scams, money laundering schemes, and hacking scandals. Although the more popular tokens like Bitcoin actually make it harder for criminals to make transactions, the privacy coins like Monero facilitates it. With privacy coins, it is impossible to see amounts, activities, or user data in a digital wallet. While criminals have taken advantage of this loophole, there is also an upside to this issue. Citizens in countries where the regimes are corrupt and the money is worthless can also benefit from these kinds of tokens.
Finance
Ironically, the finance industry have benefited hugely from the introduction of cryptocurrency. It is ironic, as one of the main rationales behind the creation of cryptocurrencies was to combat the existing financial system. Nevertheless, international banks and Wall Street firms alike have adopted the technology. Not only does blockchain technology provide these institutions with a much safer method of recording transactions, but also helped them save on energy costs. The only downside for the finance industry is that as cryptocurrency transactions become more mainstream, the traditional institutions will lose money on their existing expensive methods of transaction.
E-commerce
E-commerce is perhaps the industry where it makes most sense that cryptocurrency would have a major impact. Many websites offering products and services have been accepting cryptocurrency for years now. Even huge corporations like Amazon have been toying with the idea of accepting crypto-tokens. Places like WordPress and Overstock are already accepting it, and more website will surely follow in the near future.
Much of the media attention is surrounding Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom. However, just before he left the United States this Thursday, he signed an executive order on cryptocurrency investigations.
Cryptocurrency task force
Why create a cryptocurrency task force? The simple answer is ‘fraud’. You will recall all the Internet giants like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit placing bans on ICO and cryptocurrency advertisements. That was due to the many scams and fraudulent activities in the industry. Now, the president has signed an executive order for a new task force to be formed within the Department of Justice.
The executive order replaces a previous task force that was created back in 2009. The Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force is now outdated in the wake of cryptocurrency.
The mandate the new task force have been given is to investigate and prosecute the criminal elements within the cryptocurrency community. The task force is also responsible for bringing justice to the American people by returning the money that have been stolen or scammed to their rightful owners.
Who are the members of the task force?
Trump seems to have renewed faith in the FBI, after he fired the previous director James Comey. The new director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, will be heading the newly created taskforce. Among the members will also be Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Wray and Rosenstein will be accompanied by various representatives from departments like Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Trade Commission.
In addition to the members of the US-based task force, the group will also collaborate internationally in order to address the global issue of cryptocurrency fraud and crime.
What are the primary goals of the task force?
As mentioned, the goal of the task force is to investigate fraud and crime within the cryptocurrency space. This goal will cover not only the American government, but also the general public as well as the financial market. Although the main focus of the task force will be on digital currencies, the task force will cover all aspects of cyber-fraud.
Some of the fraudulent activities that will be investigated are the ‘pump and dump’ schemes common to cryptocurrency exchanges and initial coin offerings. The aim of these schemes is to make a lot of investor pour money into the project by selling cryptocurrency tokens, and then declaring the project to be bankrupt. This way, the scammers get to retain all the money they have made without having to deliver anything to the investors in return.
White House not explicitly against cryptocurrency
On the face of it, it could seem like the president of the US is against the cryptocurrency industry. However, the previous White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has in the past declared his fondness for cryptocurrencies as a concept. Bannon even made a joke about launching his own cryptocurrency token called the Deplorables Coin. The name was in reference to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton labelling all of Trump’s supporters as ‘deplorable’.