Wikipedia founder slams ICOs as scams

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“We are, absolutely, never going to do that. Zero interest,” he said this week.

Blockchain is a bubble

Wales believes blockchain represents a “super-interesting” new technology but says ICOs are scams and have no value.

Previously, however, the brains behind Wiki expressed his “reservations about blockchain” saying it was “clearly a bubble with a lot of mania and hype around it”.

Bitcoin and donations

Wales insisted to Business Insider that Wikipedia will continue to operate with donations. The website began accepting Bitcoins as donations in 2014, receiving approximately 237 BTC in the first week. These BTCs are currently worth about $1.8 million.

READ MORE: Fraud in ICOs ‘remains very real problem’

The digital entrepreneur is currently in the throes of launching WikiTribune, a non-profit platform for evidence-based journalism.

Everipedia resorts to ICO

Wales’ approach to raising resources contrasts with that of Everipedia, an online encyclopedia that forked from Wikipedia.

Unlike its predecessor, Everipedia launched an ICO with its token called the IQ.

READ MORE: ICOs could reach $40 billion in next two years

“We’re delighted to share the airdrop date with our growing Everipedia community and look forward to further disrupting and democratising the traditional encyclopedia model,” said co-founder Theodor Forselius.

IQ tokens will be used to reward those who produce, edit or curate content for the online encyclopedia.

It raises $30 million

In February, Everipedia, raised $30 million through its ICO. The website, which launched three years ago, claims to have three million unique users and more than six million encyclopedia entries.

According to co-founder Sam Kazemian, a younger generation turns to Everipedia instead of Wikipedia.

“They want something less stodgy, and content that includes social media and GIFs,” he claimed.