Fidelity Charitable received $28 million in crypto donations in 2020

Fidelity Charitable, the charity unit of the financial services giant Fidelity, collected $28 million in donations in the form of cryptocurrency, according to a report detailing its annual efforts.

The $28 million figure represents a notable jump from the $13 million Fidelity Charitable collected in 2019.

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"After a long period of volatility, the value of cryptocurrency soared at the end of 2020—leaving many cryptocurrency holders with significant appreciation of their assets. Fidelity Charitable’s ability to accept bitcoin and other cryptocurrency donations allows donors to take advantage of the surge in appreciation to benefit charity. By donating these assets, the donors could eliminate the significant capital gains on the appreciation while giving the full fair market value to charity," the report explained.

Two-thirds of Fidelity Charitable’s total contributions were from non-cash assets, according to the report, and $1.6 billion worth of those were from non-publicly traded assets, such as private stock or cryptocurrency. 

Fidelity's charity arm first began accepting bitcoin in 2015.

About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.