France’s Minister of State for the Digital Sector, Cédric O, has said he is open to cooperating with cryptocurrency platforms to enable crypto donations for the reconstruction of the Notre Dame cathedral. The news was reported by Bloomberg on April 17.
The medieval cathedral suffered a blaze on April 15 that nearly destroyed the world-renowned landmark. Within just two days, donations for the monument’s reconstruction are reportedly approaching 900 million euros (over $1 billion).
Cédric O — whose ministry works under the aegis of France’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire — noted that the government’s newly-launched website for Notre Dame donations was created extremely quickly and does not as of yet support contributions in cryptocurrencies.
The official site currently links to four approved organizations that are collecting donations for the reconstruction, but Cédric O stressed the government is “open to discussing with others” to help drive the fundraising efforts.
The minister said the same conditions would apply to crypto donations as those for fiat currencies — organizations must not charge commissions, data should be collected for tax deductions and the funds should ultimately be routed via one of the four approved organizations.
As Cointelegraph has reported, on April 15, BlockShow, an international blockchain event powered by Cointelegraph, launched its own campaign to raise cryptocurrency for the cathedral’s reconstruction.
Major global crypto exchange Binance also launched its own crypto donation program to support reconstruction of the cathedral this week, as reported. The new donation channel is hosted on Binance’s charity platform, which was launched as an initiative of the The Blockchain Charity Foundation (BCF).
Earlier this week, Bruno Le Maire affirmed that blockchain technology is a priority for his country’s government. He highlighted the crypto and blockchain regulatory progress heralded by the PACTE Act, which was passed by the French National Assembly earlier this month.