How one startup is using cryptocurrency to fund charities

By Jason Theron

Plot twist: cryptocurrency is used as a force for good.

Image: Red Cross Australia Facebook Page - CC BY 2.0

We’re keenly aware that there’s more to life than just banging out computer code. When we first created Horizon State, we decided that we would provide charitable organisations with a mechanism for receiving donations from the new Crypto-economy in a way that was meaningful and useable. As time progressed, and through various interactions with the UN, we have found ourselves increasingly aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This is why the development team has redoubled their efforts for an early release of our new charity application, Coinpocket. SDG-16 in particular represents the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development. Donating a portion of our income to those who will actively use it for good, is a step in the right direction.

Making charity public

Coinpocket is our way of publicly and transparently committing a portion of the revenue that passes through Horizon State to charitable organisations. Releasing this application is important to us for a number of reasons; most significant is that it provides the sort of accountability we want to expose ourselves to in how we run the company.

As Horizon State receives payments, whether that’s in the form of HST (our utility token) or legal tender (which is then converted into HST) — a percentage is committed to our charity wallet. Roughly every six weeks, we will select a group of charities to be the recipients of those funds — but with a Horizon State twist.

We’re not just going to divvy the funds up equally; we are running a blockchain based public vote, using Coinpocket to determine what percentage of the funds goes to each of the charities. The charities selected for the first round are: Red Cross Australia; Street Smart Australia; and Care for Africa Australia.

How it works

Coinpocket allows the public to review each of the charities (and what particular project they will be using the money towards) and then allows them to vote for their preferred charity. Once votes are cast, they are committed to the blockchain.

Once the election period closes, the votes are tallied and the crypto-assets from the charity wallet dispersed proportionally to the charities as decided by the voters. All charities will receive a percentage of the total amount of HST available per campaign.

As this lacks the significance of a government election, and to minimise barriers to participation, Coinpocket will use our lightest version of user authentication, which limits votes to one per email address per vote cycle.

We have created Coinpocket in a way that ensures everyone wins. Every vote counts, and the proportion of total amount of votes will go to charity you have voted on. Helping others to protect or improve the world we live in, whether that be by extending healthcare where it is desperately needed, providing education where none exists, or making a difference to our environment is more than just the right thing to do — it’s our duty as human beings to do so when and where we can.

Jason Theron is a Product Analyst at Horizon State, with a background in IT Security and business process improvement.

This article was originally published in its entirety here. It was edited and reproduced with permission.