I donated crypto to the Red Cross... Yes you can do GOOD with crypto!!!
Difficulty Level - Moderate
Its our fourth post in the "I did what with crypto" series...
In our first post (click here)... we bought skittles from a physical store
In our second post (click here)... we went online shopping
In our third post (click here)... we paid rent to my landlord..
and now... its time to do some good with crypto! In this post we are going to donate crypto to the Red Cross
My Ingredients
A coinbase account funded with 25 USDC (i.e $25)
The red cross donations page, powered by Bitpay
The rest of the story - How it works
1. Create Account: I already had a coinbase account (which is easy to get by simply going to www.coinbase.com, signing up and following the prompts). This will include connecting your bank account or debit/credit card
2. Fund Account: I then initiated a transaction to buy USDC with $30USD.
Notice that while USDC is 1:1 with the dollar, I paid $30 but only got 28.01 USDC
The difference of $1.99 is the transaction fee coinbase charged for the purchase.
3. Go to Redcross Crypto Donation Page: Redcross has a specific crypto donation page powered by bitpay found at this link here. I followed the prompts and completed the donation form.
4. Choose Coinbase Wallet to make Donation: Bitpay gives you the option of choosing which wallet you want to donate from. I selected Coinbase, and after authentication elected to donate 25USDC
4. Success! I clicked the make payment button and made the payment successfully
So what?
This is not unique to donations. Any merchant that uses "bitpay" or other similar crypto payment service can accept crypto in the same manner. The more merchants that adopt this payment method, the more useful crypto will be.
How it needs to get better?
This was pretty smooth, although its doesnt quite yet feel as simple as the swipe of a debit or credit card. In some ways it was easier i.e. i didnt have to get out my credit/debit card, and type any numbers, i just needed to login and authenticate to my coinbase wallet from bitpay. But still, to someone used to charging a pre-entered debit/credit card, this may still be too many steps.
Now you!!!
Leave me a message, or better... go do something... anything with crypto and tell us about it...maybe we will even post your story in this series!!
