WikiLeaks Now Accepts ZCash Donations – The Merkle

WikiLeaks is now accepting ZCash donations. The organizationstill accepts Bitcoin donations as well. However, there have been requests from donors who prefer more privacy-oriented donation methods for this particular site. Given that, Zcash makes a lot of sense. This is an intriguing decision that will probably inflate the ZEC price for some time to come.

The story of WikiLeaks and cryptocurrency donations goes back some time. In the beginning, the platform survived thanks to donations made usingPayPal. However, given the sensitive nature of the website and the parties it exposes on a regular basis, PayPal madethe (wrong) decision to freeze the organizationspayment processing account. This created quite a backlash against both PayPal and the U.S. government alike, yet WikiLeaks used the time wisely to searchfor alternative solutions.

That solution wasBitcoin, which was still a relatively underappreciated cryptocurrency at thetime. However, thanks to WikiLeakss embrace ofBitcoin, the cryptocurrency gained significantnotoriety. So far, WikiLeaks has continued to accept Bitcoin donations, and it does not appear they have any plans to change that. It is good to see organizationsstick with what they know will work out best in the long run.

WikiLeaks is keeping all of their donation methods open for now. In fact, it plans todouble down on accepting cryptocurrency payments. As of today, you can use ZCash to contribute to WikiLeaks as well. This makes Zcash the third cryptocurrency accepted by the sitein recent years. Not too long ago, itenabled Litecoin deposits as well. Some people may wonder why Ethereum is not on thatlist just yet, but it seems unlikely that will happenanytime soon.

Zcash users have two different donation addresses from which to choose. They can send a regular transaction, or they can move funds to a private address. It is interesting to see WikiLeaks supporting both options, andit makes a lot of sense for them to work with more privacy-oriented cryptocurrency solutions. Neither Bitcoin nor Litecoin provides any privacy or anonymity when moving funds. It will be interesting to see how many people choose todonatetheir ZEC.

Once WikiLeaks made theannouncement on Twitter, itimmediately receiveda lot of feedback from the overall cryptocurrency community. It did not take long for certainaltcoin supporters to come out of the woodwork and claim thattheir favorite coin isbetter than ZCash when it comes to privacy. Those comments are always great to see, asit shows there is a fair bit of competition in the privacy and anonymity race. Some users even feel Monero would be a better choice, sinceit would prevent anyone from seeing how much XMR the group holds in the first place.

It does not appear as if this decision will affect the ZCash price all that much. There are not too many use cases for ZEC, and donating to WikiLeaksis not something everyone does regularly. It is still good news for the currency as a whole, seeingas WikiLeaks values itswork in the privacy department. It will be interesting to notewhetherother cryptocurrencies areadded to the organizations donation page in the future. WikiLeaks continues to make waves in one way or another.

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WikiLeaks Now Accepts ZCash Donations - The Merkle