CHEYENNE, Wyo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The DigiByte Alliance, founded to support education and innovation for the DigiByte blockchain, has been granted 501(c)(3) status by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and is now recognized as a tax-exempt public charity as described in Sections 501(c)(3), 501(a)(1), and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) of the Internal Revenue Code. This designation is a watershed moment in the DigiByte public blockchain’s eight-year history, authorizing the DigiByte Alliance to receive contributions to support the development and growth of the DigiByte ecosystem through tax deductible donations, gifts, grants, bequests, and in-kind donations.
The DigiByte Alliance’s groundbreaking philanthropic approach to support a decentralized blockchain makes it one of only a handful of open-source public blockchains supported by a public non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. The DigiByte Alliance will work with organizations and individuals committed to supporting DigiByte, whose growth and development to date has relied upon the volunteer efforts of its grass roots global community, and is not supported by an Initial Coin Offering, venture capital, or significant pre-mine funding. The mission of the DigiByte Alliance is to steward the acceleration and innovation of the DigiByte blockchain by raising funds for its ongoing development, maintenance, and education.
Charitable contributions to the DigiByte Alliance will be accepted in both cryptocurrency and fiat currency. Prospective donors can learn more at https://www.dgballiance.org. A donation feature will be added in the coming weeks. A donor’s ability to claim itemized deductions is subject to a variety of limitations depending on the donor’s specific tax situation.
The DigiByte Alliance intends to use funds received from donations to sponsor research and development, and educational activities designed to facilitate DigiByte’s technical and scientific progress, application and adoption, and by providing freely accessible tools and resources to advance blockchain science and education as it relates to decentralization generally and DigiByte particularly. For example, the DigiByte Alliance has most recently participated in efforts to develop the DigiByte Improvement Process, or code contribution guidelines, and recruited developers to work towards completion of the implementation of the Rosetta standard on DigiByte. Rosetta is an open standard designed to simplify blockchain deployment and interaction.
“We welcome the IRS’s 501(c)(3) designation,” said DigiByte Alliance President Michelle Dougherty. “We believe that the DigiByte blockchain has significant advantages and can become a trusted blockchain network which can serve as a public utility to reliably and efficiently protect, secure, express, create and transfer value in the emerging digital economy. We are eager to collaborate with public and private supporters of the open source blockchain.”
The DigiByte Alliance regards itself as one of many avenues of support in DigiByte’s worldwide decentralized community and hopes to see many other nonprofit corporations and foundations from around the world join the DigiByte Alliance to accelerate its use and adoption.
“Since its launch eight years ago, the DigiByte Blockchain has matured and been maintained by a dedicated group of blockchain developers and enthusiasts all over the world. These volunteer developers have donated many thousands of person hours towards the evolution of this innovative public blockchain but have been constrained in their efforts by a lack of time and financial resources to realize greater advancements and innovations,” said Fredrick Gabelmann, DigiByte Alliance Vice President. “The IRS recognizing the DigiByte Alliance as a tax-exempt charitable organization provides the development community with a vehicle to raise the resources necessary to dramatically grow the size, scope and scale of the DigiByte open-source community.”
About the DigiByte Alliance
The mission of DigiByte Alliance is to accelerate the growth and adoption of DigiByte. The DigiByte Alliance was formed to help build the decentralized DigiByte blockchain infrastructure for the public good, with a focus on serving the users of the DigiByte protocol and blockchain. The DigiByte Alliance is committed to aiding the development and maintenance of this decentralized public infrastructure because security, efficiency, and transparency in and access to financial transactions and data integrity are fundamental to guaranteeing the dignity of individuals, human rights, and freedom and democracy in society. Learn more at dgballiance.org.
About the DigiByte Blockchain
DigiByte is a security focused peer-to-peer decentralized public payments and communications infrastructure developed and deployed as a benefit for the general public. Launched in January 2014, DigiByte is a UTXO and Proof of Work blockchain with an architecture that features five consensus mining algorithms, 15-second block times, a real-time difficulty adjustment, and extremely low fees. Learn more at DigiByte.org.
