On Wednesday, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of crypto-blockchain network Ethereum, donated over $1 billion worth of crypto-currencies to the India Covid-Crypto Relief Fund (ICCRF), according to EtherScan. This donation is worth over $7,300 crore (notional), and is perhaps the biggest philanthropic donation to the country by any single entrepreneur. The ICCRF was started by the local crypto-community towards the last week of April, led by Sandeep Naliwal, the founder and chief operating officer at blockchain firm Polygon. The fund has received support from various members of the global crypto community, including Buterin and Silicon Valley veteran Balaji Srinivasan. As of Thursday, the ICCRF had garnered a corpus worth over $1 billion in crypto-currencies. But due to government regulations civil-society groups that are providing healthcare and other relief services across the country, may face issues in trying to access these funds. It is not as simple as selling these crypto-currencies for Indian Rupees and handing over cash to the NGOs. The fund is donating money to only those charities that are in compliance with the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and is using a Dubai-based banking entity to satisfy regulatory concerns. So far, the fund has managed to donate $2 million to local non-government organisations (NGOs) that are working on the ground in response to the second wave of the COVID-19 virus, Naliwal of Polygon told MediaNama. What is ICCRF's strategy? "The modus operandi is to keep the fund in compliance with regulations. We had initially thought of creating Indian bank accounts…
