Kraken Donates 17.5 Bitcoin to Collaborative Hackerspace Noisebridge

On Feb. 27 Noisebridge advocate and attendee John Backus woke up to see that approximately 17.513 Bitcoin - equivalent to about $156,000 at the time - had been deposited into Noisebridge's cryptocurrency wallet.

The exchange sent the Bitcoin as a donation in response to a tweet that Backus had put out the day before asking for funds to help keep Noisebridge running.

In an interview with Cointelegraph on Feb. 27 at Noisebridge, Backus said that he was shocked to see that 17.5 Bitcoin had been deposited into the Noisebridge wallet.

"There were about thirty imputs and fifty outputs associated with the link, so I couldn't tell how much money there was at first. I then saw the Noisebridge address with 17.5 Bitcoin in it. I wasn't sure if this was real at first. I went on the Noisebridge Slack channel and another member confirmed that it was indeed real."

Backus, who has been visiting Noisebridge since 2013, explained that the anarchist hacking space located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District relies entirely on funds from donors.

According to Noisebridge donor and treasurer Tyler Maran, Noisebridge's sprinkler system inside the building was not up to San Francisco's city code.

A San Francisco Examiner article published April 2019 also discussed required improvements and funding needed by Noisebridge to keep the space operating.

Maran further noted that Noisebridge contains of the oldest elevators in San Francisco, which is close to 100-years old and hasn't run in over a year.

Maran told Cointelegraph that open source and decentralization are values Noisebridge advocates take pride in.

Maran also said that Kraken's donation of 17.5 Bitcoin is the largest donation Noisebridge has ever recieved.