
Pineapple Fund Drops $1M on the Sustainable Ocean Alliance - artsandsci
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/14/pineapple-fund-drops-1m-on-the-sustainable-ocean-alliance-and-its-new-accelerator/?ncid=rss
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aaroninsf
Pineapple Fund has pretty much single-handedly restored my opinion of
cryptocurrency to neutral.

Pine is pretty much the Alfred Nobel of the blockchain.

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sp332
Funny, since Alfred Nobel launched his fund to try to repair his reputation.
His obituary almost read: _The merchant of death is dead_.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize#History)

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aaroninsf
That's exactly what I had in mind... ;)

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matthewbauer
Anyone know what happens if some Bitcoins in the Pineapple fund turn out to be
illegally obtained (theft, money laundering, ransom ware, drugs, etc.)? Is
there any requirement for the donee to return the coins?

~~~
sowbug
Probably not. There's no such thing as title to money, so it's really hard to
say "that's my money" in a situation like this. Relevant case[1] re
fungibility of money. If money can be tainted, then eventually all money will
lose value, which is bad. Especially important for finite supplies like
Bitcoin.

A different argument is based on property law[2]. You can't transfer better
title than you have, but a "bona fide purchaser" obtains something that's
practically pretty close to good title. So you could see the result hinging on
whether a charity knew it was receiving stolen money (again, question whether
property concepts apply at all to money).

[1][http://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/reid-on-
scotlan...](http://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/reid-on-scotlands-
first-banknotes.html) \-- OP didn't ask about jurisdiction, but this principle
seems to be somewhat consistent in various places

[2][http://law.jrank.org/pages/9188/Personal-Property-Bona-
Fide-...](http://law.jrank.org/pages/9188/Personal-Property-Bona-Fide-
Purchasers.html)

Disclaimer: this answer is the product of law school, which means it is likely
of even worse quality than a Wikipedia search.

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throwawayfinal
"Especially important for finite supplies like Bitcoin"

The law doesn't concern itself with the technical implementation of bitcoin.
In addition, trackable and "tainted" money is dangerous for people to accept;
bitcoin just makes it real easy to identify that.

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sowbug
"The law doesn't concern itself with the technical implementation of bitcoin"

That's an astounding statement to make without citation or qualification. In
general, the law (at least in the form of U.S. appellate courts and
congressional bodies) is very good at including public-policy consequences in
its decisionmaking process.

~~~
throwawayfinal
maybe future laws and policy will take into account the more-or-less finite
supply of bitcoin. maybe.

my point is that there is no guarantee that bitcoin will receive favorable
decisions. it's hard for the lay person to understand (why not just print
more?) and if ever declared a currency-non-grata could actively be attacked in
this way.

i should add that i have engaged in btc currency speculation and had a
positive result. the long term value/health of btc is of great benefit to me.
but, it would be foolish for me to assume that because it would good for it to
be so that it will be so.

~~~
sowbug
That much I can agree with. The law eventually gets things right, but it can
take a while, and it might harm individuals and individual technologies along
the way.

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DennisP
> the nonprofit is now in possession of what remains of the $1 million after
> the usual fees and taxes

If I understand this right, if they took the donation as bitcoins they
shouldn't be paying taxes on them.

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staplers

      The bitcoins have been transferred and cashed out
    

They sold into USD, which is taxable.

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loeg
Sales of appreciated assets aren't taxable for charitable organizations in the
US.

~~~
staplers
Respond to the OP, as they originated the assumption that charitable
organizations pay taxes.

~~~
loeg
Reread the OP -- it is the exact opposite of that. DennisP is questioning the
_article 's_ claim that the charitable organization paid taxes.

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DennisP
Exactly, thank you.

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justifier
do the funds sent to these recipients remain btc and are leveraged against as
an asset or are they converted to fiat?

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gault8121
The intention is that all of the nonprofit grantees cash out immediately.
Almost all of the nonprofits funded operate on very tight budgets, and this
funding is immediately applied to support payroll and recruit for essential
positions.

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contingencies
_to support payroll and recruit_

The use of the incorrect form of recruitment appears to be one instance of a
similar phenomena for many words that is perhaps some sort of American or
Silly-Valley grammatical neologism. Does anyone know whether this has an
established/accepted linguistic description or whether it has been noted in
academia?

~~~
sram1337
I think recruit is being used as a verb there.

> to support payroll,

> and recruit for essential positions.

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brownbat
I wish they would consider GiveWell, which has applied.

GW is in the business of evaluating the effectiveness of charitable giving to
maximize impact. If you have a bunch of money to give away, it's probably
tempting to think you can outperform the impact of professionals, just as if
you suddenly have a bunch of money to invest, you might assume at first you
can outperform professional investors.

Sadly the feedback isn't quite as pronounced in charitable giving. It can feel
rewarding giving to an organization that makes a smaller impact than its
rivals, so long as it has great promotional materials and you don't ask too
many questions.

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math_and_stuff
One doesn't need to do better, just less than 21% worse:
[http://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Clear_Fund_Form_99...](http://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Clear_Fund_Form_990_2016_Redacted.pdf)

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myroon5
any further explanation? Not sure what we should be looking for in these 40+
pages

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math_and_stuff
The first page (no snark intended) shows that about 21% of the income goes to
salaries, and 79% passes to charities. Regardless of what one's conclusions
are on whether this is an acceptable overhead, it is an important
consideration in how "efficient" it is to donate through GW rather than
directly to your favorite charity.

~~~
myroon5
They also publicly list their chosen most effective charities, so you can
always donate to those directly instead of through GiveWell. I'd imagine this
is common, and a lot of additional external donations result from their
research. They try to estimate their overall impact here:
[https://www.givewell.org/about/impact](https://www.givewell.org/about/impact).

Also, feel free to disagree, but you might find their argument that expense
ratios should not be the most important charity metric interesting:
[https://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-
pick-a...](https://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-pick-a-
charity/)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Exactly. It's literally the first time I hear of giving _to_ GW. I always
thought everyone uses them as a ranking of what charities to give directly to.

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edem
Good news but this is just a drop in the ocean.

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Cw67NTN8F
I agree. Add a few of your own drops, the Pineapple guy did his part and then
some.

