Charity Crypto Poker Match: Massive-Stacking Sats for COVID-19

The crypto group is rallying across the cost to combat COVID-19, with quite a lot of initiatives elevating cash to combat the pandemic and help charities on the entrance strains of the battle. The newest: a web based poker match, open to anybody and that includes a bunch of well-known crypto faces.

The Giving Block has partnered with quite a few high-profile cryptocurrency and blockchain companies to advertise #CryptoCOVID19, a marketing campaign to boost $100Ok — which kicked off with an identical pledge of $50ok every from Vitalik Buterin and Gitcoin for all donations made in ETH or DAI on the Gitcoin platform.

However as the worldwide lockdown continues, Alex Wilson of The Giving Block mentioned they needed to do one thing greater than merely name for donations and had created a reside occasion to convey  individuals collectively across the trigger.

“We had been in search of a technique to rejoice the group’s response to our marketing campaign, one thing that introduced individuals collectively across the thought of giving. For no matter purpose lots of people on this enterprise appear to be poker gamers,” mentioned Wilson.

Satstreet’s Jon Lister defined:

“I got here up with the thought for the occasion after I used to be launched to The Giving Block at a networking occasion by Pioneer Membership. All of us agreed that a web based poker match whereas many individuals are sheltered at dwelling can be an effective way to boost cash for charities on the entrance strains of COVID. It’s been unimaginable to get help from individuals and firms all throughout the business.”

Charlies for charity 

The Giving Block shortly roped in a plethora of well-known crypto figures together with Charlie Lee (founding father of Litecoin), Charlie Shrem (founding member of the Bitcoin Basis), Peter McCormack (host of the What Bitcoin Did podcast), Joey Krug (Co-Chief Funding Officer at Pantera Capital and a core developer at Augur) and Ed Moncada (CEO of Blockfolio — and a former skilled participant with a World Collection of Poker occasion title to his identify).

Joey Krug famous that “I assumed it might be tremendous enjoyable to play poker with a bunch of individuals in crypto, and the truth that it is for charity makes it even higher!” The sentiment was echoed by Jason Lau of OKCoin, who defined that “COVID vs Crypto is an effective way for us individually to do our half and help all of the courageous and beneficial charities which are on the entrance strains.”

Charlie Lee mentioned he’d donate any winnings again to the charity:

“If I win something on this match, I’ll donate all of it to the identical trigger.”

David Nage of funding administration agency Arca was extra circumspect: 

In order for you:

1) proceed to indicate the world our group steps up in occasions of disaster and…

2) See me get completely rekt towards the likes of @nlw @CharlieShrem and others enroll. https://t.co/Fbf8LbHZRy

— David Nage🎯 (@DavidJNage) April 7, 2020

A coordinated crypto response to COVID-19

Different companions have additionally made matching donation pledges to the #CryptoCOVID19 trigger, together with the Electrical Coin Firm (builders of Zcash) with a $5K pledge, and the group at Waves, who’ve promised to match as much as $10Ok in donations. Bigbird.vc has additionally promised $10Ok in matched donations, whereas different donors embody Unstoppable Domains, Ark, 99Bitcoins, Axiom Finance, Donut App, Coinfloor, and Atomic Pockets. Binance has donated $1 million and promised to match donations as much as one other $1 million.

Cointelegraph beforehand reported on Ripple Labs, which is supporting efforts to regulate the unfold of the coronavirus in the USA, and on #COVIDathon, a decentralized synthetic intelligence hackathon to assist create options to fight the illness.