Altcoins and charity foundations are partnering up.
Do a Bit of Good, an online charity crowdfunding system, announced on Tuesday that it is working with the Givecoin Foundation in a drive to raise money for charity.
Do a Bit of Good, which claims to be the “world’s first charitable giving hub” based on bitcoin, generates money using personalized screensavers. The screensaver program mines bitcoins while the computer stays idle, and the program donates its earnings to the charitable foundation of the client’s choice.
Thanks to its new partnership, Do a Bit of Good will be distributing currency from the Givecoin Foundation, which has donated 200,000 Givecoins (called GIVE) to the project.
“We have agreed to literally give it all away and will be providing all new users who establish a Givecoin account address in our system 100 givecoins to donate within our system as they see fit,” a press release by Do a Bit of Good on the initiative published Tuesday said.
Do a Bit of Good provides the mining client, while Givecoin provides the currency.
The company was attracted to partner with Givecoin because of the currency’s altruistic background, Do a Bit of Good’s executive director David Duccini said.
“When I first learned of Givecoin I immediately recognized its value and utility as the Bitcoin of charitable giving,” the statement quoted Duccini as saying. “Unlike most of the so-called ‘altcoins,’ Givecoin was designed first and foremost for the benefit of others! Karmically that just feels good.”
Givecoin is a type of cryptocurrency dedicated specifically to charitable giving, but it relies on external mining clients to generate new coins. According to Duccini, the partnership between the two companies could lead to a greatly simplified system of donation. By running the Do a Bit of Good screensaver, users can earn bitcoins (or deposit BTC or other altcurrencies into their wallet) and convert them to Givecoin in a single click to donate to the charity of their choice.
The operation may seem small compared to Bitcoin, Duccini said, “but considering that many non-profits to this day survive on collecting coins in jars it definitely has the potential to do more than a bit of good.”