It appears that it has been a turbulent time for the Mozilla Foundation, especially after it decided to retrace its steps regarding crypto. Its recent decision to backtrack from accepting crypto donations managed to get a reaction from the creator of Dogecoin, the first-ever meme-inspired crypto token.
Firefox internet browser’s developers, Mozilla, tweeted last December 31, 2021, that the company would begin accepting crypto projects such as Dogecoin, Ether, and Bitcoin as donations. However, the company decided to stop the new campaign altogether even before a week had passed due to backlash from users of the browser and programmer Jamie Zawinski, one of Mozilla’s co-founders.
Zawinski tweeted in response to Mozilla’s announcement saying those involved in the campaign “should be witheringly ashamed of this decision to partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters.” The co-founder then posted a follow-up tweet sharing his newly-published blog post, which stated that the business model of the crypto industry is not realistic.
After being on the receiving end of Zawinski’s disappointment, Mozilla decided to pause the acceptance of crypto donations. Not only that, it seemed that the co-founder’s message was heard loud and clear, leading to the company having an internal discussion on how cryptocurrency negatively affects the environment. Furthermore, the company will review its policies surrounding crypto donations to see if they align with its climate goals.
This series of events reached Dogecoin creator Billy Markus, who expressed his disapproval of Mozilla’s decision. In his response, he states that “paper dollars and the entire banking infrastructure” also have an environmental impact.
to be clear, we should care about the environment, just y’know, recognize that if we are living in a first world country and whining on Twitter, we are pretty terrible for the planet, and stop trying to act like everything is the worst thing ever and we are all saints
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) January 7, 2022
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, announced in early 2021 that the company would no longer accept Bitcoin due to environmental considerations. After this announcement, more crypto projects have adopted a more environmentally-friendly process to draw in more audiences and gain traction in the crypto community.
During an interview with Cointelegraph, Rarible co-founder Alex Salnikov said the ongoing pressure for crypto projects to become more eco-friendly may turn out to be a good thing.
