A report published by CoinDesk has brought into question the transparency of the Binance Charity Foundation (BCF).
The report points to significant discrepancies between the sum of money publicly pledged to the BCF’s Pink Care project – a philanthropic initiative seeking to provide African school girls access to sanitary products.
Less Than Half of Publicly Pledged BCF Donations Account For
The project involves the bundling of donations into unique digital tokens, which can then be exchanged for menstrual products, and distributed to Ugandan teachers and parents. The Pink Care website currently states the project has received 146 donations equating to nearly 19.82 BTC (approximately $4.8 million as of this writing).
The report points to $10 million worth of cryptocurrency that was pledged by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao at the BCF launch, in addition to a $3 million donation from Tron founder, Justin Sun, while noting that less than 550 BTC (approximately $5,111,500) has been deposited into the BCF wallet.
In October 2018, Binance announced that cryptocurrency listing fees would be donated to the BCF.
When asked about the discrepancy between the pledged donations and the sum visible in the BCF wallet, a Binance spokesperson indicated that the unaccounted funds will be designated toward future BCF projects, stating:
The Binance part ($10 million) is a commitment […] other [donations] are set aside. But since we don’t have that many projects yet, they will come when needed.
8-10% of Donations Diverted Toward Operational Fees
In March, a report by The Block estimated the BCF had then deployed $178,000 worth of cryptocurrency toward three projects that reached at least 1,000 beneficiaries. In an interview published in the report, a Binance spokesperson indicated that BCF’s operations are “100% covered by Binance,” however, an “eight to ten percent operational fee is charged by the implementation [non-government organization] who facilitates the distribution and monitors the project.”
At the time, Uganda’s Minister of State for Primary Education spoke in favor of the application of distributed ledger technology in conducting charitable activities. “People are protected from potential corruption,” she said. “All the allocation records are demonstrated on the blockchain which is immutable. I firmly believe that public trust and willingness to participate in this intervention will grow dramatically.”
