Bitcoin Charity Admits Its Biggest-Ever Donation Was Likely Stolen Money
The head of a Bitcoin charity has admitted accepting a large anonymous donation even though he strongly suspected it was stolen during a raid on a cryptocurrency exchange.
Dmitry Murashchik, who goes under the name Rassah, runs Bitcoin 100, which exists to persuade existing charities to accept donations using virtual cash. In January last year, an anonymous donor gave Rassah’s organization a donation worth about 180 BTC. At the time, this was worth about $2,600, but with the cryptocurrency’s appreciation since then, it is worth approximately $150,000.
With no way of tracking the money or the donor, Rassah had no choice but to accept it to help finance his fledgling non-profit, which offers charities a $1,000 prize if they begin accepting online donations using bitcoin.
“We received a sizable donation of about 180BTC at around the same time as a few exchanges were hacked and robbed,” Rassah said in an email. “I suspect the money was stolen. Since there was nothing I could do to figure out where the money came from, we ended up keeping it.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasperhamill/2014/02/03/bitcoin-charity-admits-its-biggest-donation-ever-was-likely-stolen-money/
