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"Even the man who started Wikipedia needs to find information on other websites once in a while.\nJimmy Wales, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, turned to the Bitcoin community on Reddit to ask about the increasingly popular and often misunderstood cryptocurrency Bitcoin on Monday.\nSee also: At Age 13, Wikipedia Has Reshaped the Knowledge Industry\n\"I'm playing with Bitcoin, thinking about it and have some questions about how to look at blockchain.info,\" Wales wrote on the Bitcoin subreddit, posting from his known account JimmyWales1.\nSpecifically, Wales wrote that he is considering whether or not the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia, should begin to accept Bitcoin donations. Wikipedia is a non-profit venture maintained by and large on donations from individual users.\n\nPeople interested in chatting with me about BTC will find this a good place to do it: http://t.co/6byj4LLVMA\n\u2014 Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) March 10, 2014\n\n\u00A0\nBitcoin was thrust into the limelight when its price skyrocketed past $1,000 late last year, after starting the year at around $13. Despite its increasing value, Bitcoin has remained somewhat controversial due to its connection to digital crime, most notably, online black markets such as Silk Road. The digital currency also took a major hit last month, when its former most popular exchange, Mt. Gox, collapsed and filed for bankruptcy after losing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of its customers Bitcoin allegedly due to a security glitch.\nBitcoin enthusiasts have been eager to convince Wales of the digital currency's merits. Wales posted his Bitcoin address on Twitter last week and, unprompted, received donations totaling more than 4 BTC, which is worth about $2,500 by current exchange rates. On Reddit, Wales claimed he would pass the money onto the Wikimedia Foundations.\n\"See how easy it is to receive donations by Bitcoin. Wikipedia would really benefit from this,\" an anonymous user wrote as a note that accompanied her or his donation.\nThe Wikimedia Foundation has not yet adopted Bitcoin as a donation option because \"the more payment options we give people, the less they donate,\" Wales wrote on Reddit. Wales spent a few hours debating with other Reddit users on this point.\nOne user suggested that Wikipedia should feature a Bitcoin donation button at the bottom of every page, since \"paying with Bitcoin is so easy that it can often be an 'impulse buy.'\"\nWales responded with the following:\n\nI think it would not be wise to put it on the bottom of every page. In the grand scheme of things the number of people using bitcoin is effectively zero. So we'd be showing what would effectively be a promotion for bitcoin in exchange for a very small net financial gain. That'd be great for lots of for-profit bitcoin businesses, and great for the bitcoin movement, but not really sensible for Wikimedia.\nYes, maybe someday if bitcoin becomes mainstream.\n\nWales even had a response to a user who wrote he had a \"stupid face\": \"Thank you for your kind words.\"\nWales said he planned to present the conversation about accepting Bitcoin donations with the Wikimedia Foundation's board of directors at their next meeting. You can find the full Reddit thread of Wales' Bitcoin conversation here.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\n      window._msla=window.loadScriptAsync||function(src,id){if(document.getElementById(id))return;var js=document.createElement('script');js.id=id;js.src=src;document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0].parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);};\n_msla(\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\",\"twitter_jssdk\");"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/03/10/jimmy-wales-reddit-bitcoin/>