Wikipedia Co-founder Jimmy Wales Believes Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Tech Can’t Add Something Helpful to the On-line Encyclopedia

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, famous on February 21 that he has not been in a position to establish any sensible use-cases for cryptocurrencies or blockchain know-how so far as Wikipedia’s improvement and upkeep is anxious.

Wales, whose feedback got here through the latest CoinGeek Convention (held in London), argued that digital currencies will be unable so as to add something distinctive or helpful to the Wikipedia platform. He thinks they might really hurt the mission’s imaginative and prescient and even injury Wikipedia’s distinctive manner of working and providing companies.

Whereas talking reverse self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright, Wales famous that he had tried to differentiate between the ideological and sensible components of digital currencies. He claimed that he had rejected solutions from crypto supporters, who had reportedly requested that he ought to look into permitting customers to reward content material creators and editors with digital tokens.

Wales remarked:

“It is a actually unhealthy concept. It’s an concept that doesn’t really work. If you happen to take one thing that may be a unhealthy concept and put it on the blockchain, that doesn’t essentially make it a good suggestion.”

He added:

“Making a mechanism the place you successfully authenticate that sort of habits … isn’t going to assist with the standard of Wikipedia in any respect.”

Wales believes that if content material creators stake digital foreign money, then it might “severely hurt” Wikipedia.

He continued:

“To say to them, you’re going to must pay or put cash in danger with the intention to edit Wikipedia is totally insane.”

If Wikipedia started requiring customers to make deposits, then it’d exclude subject material specialists who had been beforehand contributing as a result of they had been genuinely thinking about a selected matter. As a substitute of educated content material creators, there could be customers who would simply be competing in opposition to one another to create content material, and so they might even flag inaccurate edits, only for monetary incentives, Wales stated.

Wikipedia has at all times trusted volunteer professionals and subject material specialists to contribute new content material to the platform. It’s the volunteers who’re answerable for fact-checking and in addition for eradicating or deleting inaccurate materials, Wales confirmed. 

By including digital currencies, Wikipedia may very well be “taking a step again” by making it extra handy for customers to pay for the content material they’d like to advertise on the platform, Wales argued.