The Cryptocurrency known as ‘Bitcoin’ has been heavily featured in news headlines lately (largely thanks to its surging value) and has recently become an exciting new source of income for The Children’s Heart Unit Fund (CHUF).

CHUF was approached regarding its first ever Bitcoin donation in early 2017, originally valued at around £1000, however, due to the currency’s spectacular inflation, a donation of 2.7 Bitcoin recently resulted in a cash donation of close to £12,000 for the charity!

Daniel Bainbridge, aged 34 (who hails from Darlington but now lives in Indonesia) underwent life-saving heart surgery at Freeman Hospital’s Children’s Heart Unit as an infant making his donation extremely personal.

“I run a business where we make mobile games and offer rewards in Bitcoin. Someone tried to defraud our game so as a gesture I withheld the money from him and donated it to CHUF.”

“When I first contacted CHUF the value was around £1000. It took some time to explain how to accept a Bitcoin donation. I’ve invested in Bitcoin myself so I hoped that it would increase in value.”

Daniel went above and beyond to help the charity, returning to the UK to visit the CHUF office in Jesmond helping the team register to a Bitcoin Exchange. By the time Daniel made the trip over from Bali, the value of the donation had already increased to around £5,000. However, in October 2017 when the transaction was completed the final cash donation was £11,807.17!

Daniel is enthusiastic about Bitcoin and encourages charities themselves and others using the digital currency to consider Bitcoin: “Email your favourite charity and let them know you have a donation for them. It’s an industry in its infancy so you can get them involved now. You might have to help them get a bitcoin address and show them how to advertise it as well as cash it out – but this means the charity can attract extra donations from others.”

“I’d love to donate more Bitcoin in the future and hope to create a website helping charities to set up Bitcoin addresses so they can receive additional donations. CHUF is my charity and is very special to me, as I was a CHUF baby and survived two heart operations thanks to Ward 23.”

The donation has been a big boost to the charity and came as somewhat of a surprise after its rapid rise in value. Adding a final comment, Daniel was delighted with the result: “I’m completely thrilled that a simple donation could increase so much and really be impactful for CHUF.”

Charlotte Campbell, Senior Fundraising Manager at CHUF said “We are extremely grateful to Daniel for his incredible donation.We are thrilled to have benefitted so greatly from the rise in Bitcoin’s value and extremely grateful to Daniel for his generosity, guidance, help and advice. The £11,800 donation will help more people to achieve their dreams.”

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