This week, Paxful, one of the largest peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin marketplaces in the world, announced the completion of a new school in Rwanda. The school was funded entirely with bitcoin, as a part of their #BuiltwithBitcoin initiative, and is the second school built in the ocuntry through this project. The team plans to build 100 schools in total, all throughout the continent of Africa.
The new school was a $100,000 project, and was constructed with the help of Zam Zam Water, a local humanitarian organization. The money was raised through a series of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash donations.
The Paxful school is the first primary school in the area, and has 6 classrooms, with 6 full-time teachers, a cafeteria, bathroom stalls, solar panels, and a 35,000L water well system.
Ray Youseff, the CEO and co-founder of Paxful, told Cointelegraph that they are providing scholarships as well as building schools. Youseff said:
“We encourage the cryptocurrency sector to contribute more to humanitarian projects. The #BuiltWithBitcoin initiative is an example of bitcoin being used as more than a speculative tool but a testament to the usefulness of cryptocurrency To date, we have built two schools – a nursery, and a primary school in Rwanda, Africa- and provided scholarships to Afghan refugees, and plan to continue these philanthropic ventures.”
Yusuf A. Nessary, President and Founder of Zam Zam Water added:
“Having proper education centers is fundamental in moving countries like Rwanda forward, while also increasing their standard of living. Education is the crucial stepping stone in serving people in developing nations improving their quality of life. We are beyond thrilled to have partnered with Paxful in order to provide education for next generation and beyond.”
Paxful is a good example of a cryptocurrency company who gives back to the community. Paxful also had a great year to fund their charitable efforts, despite the bear market.
According to data shared with CryptoGlobe, Paxful has seen its users trade over $739 million last year, up from over $320 million in 2017. The figures are notable, as its number of users grew less than 20%, from 759,000 to 906,000 in said period.
This means that during 2017’s bull run Paxful’s users transacted significantly less bitcoin than they did during last year’s bear market, which saw the price of bitcoin drop from a near $20,000 all-time high to about $3,200 before it started recovering, according to CryptoCompare data.
