Polish cryptocurrency exchanges BitBay and Bitcantor have organized a Christmas fundraiser to buy presents for children from Tęcza Child Care Home in Katowice, Poland.
BitBay, established in 2014, doesn’t only have an innovative platform, great support and many tools for traders. It is also a team of people that engage in events to support the industry and charity events.
“We are also a team of people that want to do something good for the world,” Justyna Laskowska-Witek, head of marketing,” told CCN.com. “That’s why we want to engage in charity causes. We hope many people will participate so we can make children’s wishes come true. Bitcoins we collect are going to be exchanged to PLN without any fees, and then spent on gifts that children wrote down on their letters to Santa Claus.”
“We decided that bitcoin would be perfect for the fundraiser because it’s the most popular cryptocurrency among our users, but also in general,” Laskowska-Witek said.
In addition to helping children, the fundraiser promotes awareness of bitcoin and cryptocurrency in Poland. “Bitcoin is still not as popular as we wish it was, and a fundraiser is something that speaks to almost everyone,” Laskowska-Witek said. “That’s why we think if we connect those two things we can create interest in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for people that never heard of it before. Also, lack of knowledge often makes people think that cryptocurrencies are used for bad causes. Our fundraiser shows that it’s not true, and bitcoin is used for helping others.”
“For last year’s fundraiser for the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, we collected 1,863 BTC which at the time was an equivalent of 3400 PLN,” Laskowska-Witek said. “The fundraiser was held from December 15th 2015 to January 10th 2016. Of course, because of bitcoin’s growing exchange rate, right now we could get more PLN for the same amount of bitcoins. At the moment we collected 1,499 BTC for the Christmas fundraiser for Tęcza Child Care Home in Katowice, which is an equivalent of more or less 4800 PLN.”
The fundraiser began on November 30 and will end on December 15, 2016. The entire amount of the fundraiser will be spent on toys and items that children wrote down on their letters to Santa Claus.
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Bitcantor is BitBay’s fundraiser partner. “It’s an easy platform for buying and selling bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, especially for people who are not interested in trading,” Laskowska-Witek said regarding Bitcantor. “Bitcantor is organizing the fundraiser together with BitBay, and also it is promoting the fundraiser among its users. Our teams will deliver the presents to the children when the fundraiser is done.”
“The awareness (for bitcoin) is still too low in our country,” Laskowska-Witek said. “It’s growing and we are participating in this growth as much as we can. Our team is not only operating BitBay platform, but we also participate in educational and industry events. Our specialists organize training courses for the police and prosecutors about blockchain, bitcoin and similar technologies. We cooperate with the government in ‘blockchain and cryptocurrencies’ stream, which is a group that works on introducing those technologies to e-administration of the country. We also attend industry events and conferences where our representatives promote the idea of bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading.”
Contribution to the fundraiser is possible for BitBay clients, as well as for people that don’t have an account on the exchange. People without an account can go to https://bitbay.net/mikolaj-info. BitBay users can go to https://bitbay.net/mikolaj.
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