Tangentially, if an organization is accepting crypto and is not immediately liquidating it, it should consult an appropriate tax or legal professional in its jurisdiction to walk through that. Governing law often imposes certain investment obligations on charities (e.g., this summary of crypto-related issues for New York).
I thought that was worth mentioning since the “donor who makes regular payments to your charity in a token of a project that they’re deeply personally involved with” may be irritated when you immediately sell that token once donated, but I think it may often be hard to defend not doing that from a legal standpoint. Even assuming that holding Bitcoin might be seen as a suitable investment for a charity, I question holding some small crypto token would be.
Great point. And also for organisations with international presence to be careful with exchange rate risks and match currency holdings with expected currency expenses unless there are good reasons not to, sounds really basic but I have seen this overlooked even with large well run organisations.
Thanks for posting this!
Tangentially, if an organization is accepting crypto and is not immediately liquidating it, it should consult an appropriate tax or legal professional in its jurisdiction to walk through that. Governing law often imposes certain investment obligations on charities (e.g., this summary of crypto-related issues for New York).
I thought that was worth mentioning since the “donor who makes regular payments to your charity in a token of a project that they’re deeply personally involved with” may be irritated when you immediately sell that token once donated, but I think it may often be hard to defend not doing that from a legal standpoint. Even assuming that holding Bitcoin might be seen as a suitable investment for a charity, I question holding some small crypto token would be.
Great point. And also for organisations with international presence to be careful with exchange rate risks and match currency holdings with expected currency expenses unless there are good reasons not to, sounds really basic but I have seen this overlooked even with large well run organisations.
That’s an interesting link & useful side note, thanks for sharing!