In a recent interview with Business Insider, Jimmy Wales, the American Internet entrepreneur and the co-founder of Wikipedia, spoke his mind in regards to raising funds through an ICO.
The Wikipedia co-founder bluntly stated that “We are absolutely never going to do that. Zero interest.”
Even though Wikipedia does accept Bitcoin as donations from its users, and that the businessman considers blockchain to be a “super-interesting technology,” Wales has some reservations about blockchain.
At a conference in Berlin, earlier this year, Wales stated that “I have reservations about blockchain. It’s a super-interesting technology, but it’s clearly a bubble with a lot of mania and hype around it. People pay me to give speeches, so I flew to Berlin. I really do like the city, I think it’s great.”
Wales’ decision to pass up on connecting blockchain technology with Wikipedia is not necessarily a bad thing. Wikipedia’s co-founder seems to be heavily involved with the development of WikiTribune – a non-profit service born out of the recent “fake news” frenzy that promotes and encourages evidence-based journalism.
Wikipedia’s decision might open the door for other crypto-inclined services
However, this decision might leave room for other similar online services and encyclopedias to emerge in the near future. Take, for example, Everipedia, a Wikipedia fork that entitles itself as “the most accessible online encyclopedia.” Contrary to Wikipedia, Everipedia seems very much interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency technology, a fact proven by its own token, called IQ.
IQ tokens will be very similar to those of Steemit. In short, Everipedia users can earn IQ tokens by writing new content or by keeping the already existing information on the encyclopedia fresh and updated.
“We’re delighted to share the airdrop date with our growing Everipedia community and look forward to further disrupting and democratizing the traditional encyclopedia model,” Everipedia Co-founder and CEO, Theodor Forselius, declared at the time of its ICO.