After being strongly opposed by users, Mozilla has joined the ranks of companies and organizations that have abandoned the use of cryptocurrencies. Mozilla said Thursday that it will temporarily stop accepting donations to the Mozilla Foundation through the BitPay platform. The Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary Mozilla develop the Firefox browser.
Last week, Mozilla drew the ire of big influencers in the open-source community by tweeting that it called for donations in cryptocurrency. Jamie Zawinski, the co-founder of Mozilla, Netscape, and several core Internet technologies, responded: Everyone involved in this project should be working with the Ponzi scammers that burn the planet. I am deeply ashamed of the decision.
Dabble in @dogecoin? HODLing some #Bitcoin & #Ethereum?
We’re using @BitPay to accept donations in #cryptocurrency https://t.co/EOsLD1Z88O
— Mozilla (@mozilla) December 31, 2021
Zavinsky’s focus is on the environmental concerns posed by cryptocurrencies. Last January, Mozilla’s sustainability chief Cathleen Berger released a list of climate commitments, claiming that the most effective climate mitigation strategy is to avoid emissions. After the criticism, Mozilla said in a Twitter post that it needed to assess how cryptocurrency donations align with their stance on climate.