UNICEF - the United Nations International Children’s Fund, is the first United Nations organization that embraced the cryptocurrency donations, without the need of converting the funds received into fiat. The fund was held into 2 cryptocurrencies and expended amongst various supporting projects that benefited the children worldwide. It had announced that it will be able to receive, hold and disburse donations with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether.

UNICEF has explained, “Unicef will now be able to receive, hold and disburse donations of cryptocurrencies ether and bitcoin, through its newly-established Unicef Cryptocurrency Fund.” “In a first for United Nations organizations, Unicef will use cryptocurrencies to fund open source technology benefiting children and young people around the world.”

In April 2018, UNICEF had launched a website named The Hopepage that would mine cryptocurrency with the aid of visitor’s computer processing power. During the press time, the website had stated that over more than 30,800 people were actively donating to their respective computing power.

Unicef was the first UN organization to initiate a cryptocurrency fund that was launched in October 2019 to hold and conduct cryptocurrency transactions. It had announced that its first crypto fund contribution would be made by the Ethereum Foundation through the French national committee.

While Unicef had also confirmed that, “Under the structure of the Unicef Cryptocurrency Fund, contributions will be held in their cryptocurrency of contribution, and granted out in the same cryptocurrency.”

UNICEF has also announced cryptocurrency investment funding for the startups in the developing economies. It stated, “Eight technology companies in developing and emerging economies will receive investment from the Unicef Cryptocurrency Fund (Cryptofund) to solve local and global challenges.”

The Unicef crypto fund will invest 125 ETH from 7 countries to the 8 companies - to develop prototypes, pilot, or scale their technologies over six months: Afinidata, Avyantra, Cireha, Ideasis, OS City, StaTwig, Somleng, and Utopic. The announcement stated, 

“All investees have previously received up to $100,000 from Unicef’s Innovation Fund and are now receiving cryptocurrency to continue the development of their open-source and digital public goods.” While many investees worked to mitigate the hardships of COVID-19 on children and youth across the world.

Amongst the 8 companies that received the fund, three are the grantees - Prescrypto, Atix Labs, and Utopixar and the rest were from the 40 startups that had graduated from the Unicef Innovation Fund. Unicef described these companies “have undergone technical evaluations, quality assessments of their open-source tech solutions, evidence of impact and more.” Apart from funding the companies will also “receive business growth mentorship, product, and technical assistance, open-source and UX and UI development, access to experts and partners, as well as opportunities to showcase their solutions.”

Chris Fabian, from Unicef Ventures, said, 

“We are seeing the digital world come at us more quickly than we could have imagined – and Unicef must be able to use all of the tools of this new world to help children today and tomorrow.” “The transfer of these funds – to eight companies in seven countries around the world – took less than 20 minutes and cost us less than $20. Almost instant global movement of value, fees of less than 0.00009% of the total amount transferred, and real-time transparency for our donors and supporters are the types of tools we are excited about.”

Henrietta Fore, Unicef Executive Director stated, 

“This is a new and exciting venture for UNICEF.” “If digital economies and currencies have the potential to shape the lives of coming generations, it is important that we explore the opportunities they offer. That’s why the creation of our Cryptocurrency Fund is a significant and welcome step forward in humanitarian and development work."