Non-profit media group Wikileaks has announced that it is now accepting donations in the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency zcash.
Zcash was notably included as one of the options in a poll the nonprofit held on Twitter at the start of the month. Of the options presented – monero, zcash and ethereum (misspelled as "etherium" ) – zcash garnered 11 percent of the 12,204 votes submitted, compared to 21 percent for monero and 45 percent for ethereum. Twenty-three percent opted for "other."
Wikileaks, which gained notoriety for its release of materials including footage from the Iraq War and the emails of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, began accepting bitcoin back in 2011.
Since then, the cryptocurrency has proven to be a popular donation mechanism for the group – to date, Wikileaks' bitcoin wallet has received more than 26,000 transactions.
The group – and its founder Julian Assange – have tapped the technology for other purposes as well.
During an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit in January, Assange (who has lived in the London-based embassy for Ecuador since 2012), used data from the bitcoin blockchain as a "proof of life" mechanism to effectively quash rumors that he was dead.
Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Zerocoin Electric Company, the developer of zcash.
Wikileaks image via Gil C/Shutterstock.com