Mozilla halts crypto donations amid backlash about its unsustainability

The crypto space is flooded with the debate about the industry’s ill effects on climate. Especially, as countries across the globe suffer from energy crisis during the bitter-cold winters, more people are pointing fingers at the crypto industry for being one of the biggest causes given its unsustainable nature. Following this wave, the nonprofit organisation supporting the Firefox web browser, Mozilla foundation announced temporary suspension of crypto donations.

Last week, we tweeted a reminder that Mozilla accepts cryptocurrency donations. This led to an important discussion about cryptocurrency’s environmental impact. We’re listening, and taking action. 1/4

— Mozilla (@mozilla) January 6, 2022

The foundation’s official Twitter handle noted that they will not be accepting crypto donations due to the ongoing discussions around the environmental impact of digital currencies. While Mozilla highlighted that the decentralized web technology continues to be an “important area” for the foundation to explore, but given that they started accepting crypto payments back in 2014, Mozilla agreed that “a lot has changed since” and it is high time to take relevant actions.

“starting today we are reviewing if and how our current policy on crypto donations fits with our climate goals. And as we conduct our review, we will pause the ability to donate cryptocurrency.”

Global Energy Crisis results in manifold actions against crypto operations

Countries like Kazakhstan, Iran, and the Republic of Kosovo have already become victims of a massive energy crisis and the governments are taking strict actions against crypto operations in their respective territories to prevent further deterioration of the situation.

Kazakhstan is currently trending on all news publications since the country broke out into several protests when the natural gas prices were hiked amid other issues like power outages. Furthermore, the global mining community has suggested the local cryptocurrency miners to “pay attention to their personal safety”. Following this, the President announced nationwide internet shutdown which further caused a 12% drop in the hashrate of the Bitcoin network.

Iran is another country that is seemingly facing an ongoing winter energy crisis, resulting in the imposition of a second crypto mining ban. Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, director of the public firm, Iran Grid Management Co. and a spokesman for Iran’s power industry noted that the ban will last until March 9, 2022. At last, the Republic of Kosovo also banned crypto mining as part of several relief measures to reverse the energy catastrophe.