The donation will promote the company's academic approach to blockchain development and engineering.

Cryptocurrency development firm IOHK made a $500,000 cryptocurrency donation to the University of Wyoming. The donation was made in Cardano (ADA), currently the world’s 11th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The state of Wyoming will match the donation, meaning the university will actually receive $1,000,000 to help fund their blockchain research.

"The University of Wyoming is proud to be at the forefront of blockchain research and education, and we are grateful for this significant financial contribution from IOHK," said UW acting president Neal Theobald. "This support will help us continue to move forward in a very exciting and promising field of innovation and discovery."

This is the first cryptocurrency donation the University of Wyoming has received, but we’ve seen other universities receive high profile bitcoin and other cryptocurrency donations.





What about other Universities?





On December 31, 2019, we saw Carnegie Mellon receive a $1,300,000 cryptocurrency donation , with an additional $2,900,000 pledged over the next three years. Before that, we’ve also seen $50,000,000 donated to a couple dozen universities .

Because universities are also nonprofits, donors receive substantial tax benefits when donating cryptocurrency directly to a nonprofit or higher education institution such as a university. More and more Universities are accepting cryptocurrency and have received large donations including:





Is your University ready to accept cryptocurrency donations?





Millennials and other recent graduates are increasingly turning to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of investment and money. In the last few years, we've seen millions of dollars donated to universities around the world in the form of cryptocurrency because of the tax incentive. The IRS treats cryptocurrency as property, making it similar to a stock donation, meaning the donor does not pay capital gains tax and can write it off on their taxes.

In this webinar, we'll explore this emerging trend and cover topics like:

What universities are currently fundraising Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies?

Which universities have received large donations in cryptocurrency?

How large is the market for donations?

Important considerations for fundraising cryptocurrency

Common misconceptions