Wikipedia: The COVID-Crypto Relief Fund (Crypto Relief) was announced on 24 April 2021 during the second wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in India. The fund has been able to provide donations for oxygen concentrators and oxygen cylinders. Crypto exchanges in India are providing the expertise to convert the crypto money into Fiat money. Regulatory clearances have also been addressed.
There have been several small crypto traders and entrepreneurs who are willing to donate to support India’s fight against coronavirus.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of social media giant Twitter donate $2.5 million out of a total of $15 million (around Rs 110 crore) to support the relief efforts in India’s ongoing COVID-19 second wave to “NGO Sewa International.” This has indeed sparked off a major controversy.
The “RSS is a National Volunteer Organization”), is an Indian right wing, Hindu Nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organizations called the Sangh Parivar (the “family of the RSS”), which have presence in all facets of the Indian society. RSS was founded on 27 September 1925. As of 2014, it has a membership of 5–6 million.
The donation from Dorsey sparked controversy. Per Wikipedia, “The RSS has historically played a major role in the Hindu nationalist movement. On several occasions it has been banned by the Indian government, for its alleged role in communal violence.”
However, the RSS website projects a State Wise Covid Relief Brochure, which explains the different programs they are offering for Covid relief across different states in India. They have also cited: “YOU CAN MAKE DONATION: Your Donation is exempted from Income Tax under Section 80G.”
Also, Vitalik Buterin, one of the creators of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, donated more than 50 trillion — yes, with a T — Shiba Inu coins, a meta joke about the joke that is Dogecoin.
There has been an outpouring of international support to deal with the Covid crisis. Despite there being willing donors from the cryptocurrency space, there have been a number of regulatory hurdles in channeling the funds through to on-ground relief workers and organizations.
Considering the Indian regulators’ fears over money-laundering and undisclosed income related to crypto payments, it is becoming very hard to access the growing corpus of funds donated. And with banks now refusing fiat to cryptocurrency transactions it is not as easy as simply converting it into local currency to provide for relief activities at the grassroots level.
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