Blockchain-based payments startup Ripple donated $29 million (the largest donation of cryptocurrency) to support public schools all over US

San Francisco-based blockchain startup, Ripple, and its executives have donated $29 million to fund every classroom project request posted on the nonprofit’s website, DonorsChoose.org. The donation fulfilled over 35,000 requests from 28,210 public school teachers via DonorsChoose charity fund.  DonorsChoose will convert the donations into US dollars over the course of two weeks in order to avoid the volatility of the cryptocurrency market, and to comply with the company’s policy to sell the donated currency immediately, According to CNBC.

“At Ripple, we care about giving back to our community and we collectively value the importance of quality education in developing the next generation of leaders,” said Monica Long, SVP of Marketing at Ripple. “DonorsChoose.org’s track record speaks for itself — they are highly effective at improving the quality of education and the experience of teachers and students across America. We’re proud to work with them to support classroom needs across the country.”

The gift represents the largest donation received by DonorsChoose.org in its 18-year history, and likely represents the largest ever donation of a digital asset to a single charity. Ripple and its executives contributed the donation in XRP, which was converted to U.S. dollars and used to purchase the classroom materials. DonorsChoose.org is the leading platform for giving to public schools. Teachers across America use the site to create projects requesting resources their students need, and donors give to the projects that inspire them. Since its founding by a Bronx teacher in 2000, 3 million people and partners have given over $650 million to projects reaching 27 million students.

“We are awestruck by the generosity of the Ripple team. Their gift will provide learning materials and experiences to more than a million students, overwhelmingly in low-income communities,” said Charles Best, founder of DonorsChoose.org. “I doubt that there has ever been a day when more classroom dreams came true.”

The Ripple team’s donation provides the ultimate culmination of #BestSchoolDay, a campaign launched in March 2016 when 58 athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists funded classroom requests in cities and states covering just under half of the country. For a limited time, as teachers generate new classroom project requests on the site, DonorsChoose.org will offer donors the option of giving to the #BestSchoolDay Fund, which will be used to support projects from teachers creating their first requests on the site. DonorsChoose.org estimates that teachers will submit at least another 135,000 classroom project requests between now and the start of the next school year.

Founded in 2012 by Arthur Britto, Chris Larsen, Paul Cafardo and Ryan Fugger, the cryptocurrency startup is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network created by the Ripple company. Ripple connects banks, payment providers, digital asset exchanges and corporates via RippleNet to provide one frictionless experience to send money globally.

In a related Twitter post, the company said: “We’re so happy to give back to teachers like @kinder_roxs and all their students across the country! Help us build on this momentum up by donating to projects on @DonorsChoose and continue the #BestSchoolDay.”

We're so happy to give back to teachers like @kinder_roxs and all their students across the country!

Help us build on this momentum up by donating to projects on @DonorsChoose and continue the #BestSchoolDay https://t.co/qY1z7rlZgc

— Ripple (@Ripple) March 28, 2018