The ongoing political unrest in the U.S. is giving the masses a rather unfortunate reason to adopt cryptocurrencies. While some might move to use Bitcoin as a form of “protest,” a new software allows individuals to mine Monero (XMR) to pay bails for those jailed unnecessarily.
XMR to the Rescue
Called “Bail Bloc,” the software mines Monero from user computers and stores all rewards in a “pooled” address. Funds are then distributed, when requested, to those that verify and ask for bail.
Bail Bloc is not a new system. The project began back in November 2018, but is seeing a rise in both popularity and relevance as “Black Lives Matter” protests erupt across America. The latter is a movement aggressively calling out the police brutality, and eventual death, towards U.S. citizen George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.
Founder Grayson Earle told Coindesk the software has seen a 20 percent increase in total hash rate compared to last week, a significant uptick considering the total hash rate of Monero. Bail Bloc’s hash rate is currently 94.5 kilo hash per second, notes Earle.
Earle added the urgency of the situation required direct action, and such resources can help with the direct deployment of funds to needed areas.
The founder first conceived the project in 2016, after Donald Trump was elected the U.S. President. Monero is a leading privacy-focused coin that hides the identity of miners and Earle said Monero’s mining algorithm has helped Bail Bloc.
Earle explained how the Monero protocol was beneficial to his cause:
“The Random-X mining algorithm helped our project because most of the people running Bail Bloc on their computers are using mid-level consumer laptops without dedicated graphics cards (GPUs).”
Tens of Thousands Helped
At press time, over $8,000 in Monero has been generated by users of Bail Bloc. The proceeds can help over 13 people.
Other projects and NGOs working towards similar causes have also turned to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for fund raiser and deployment. Bail Project, one such initiative, provides free bail assistance to thousands of low-income Americans every year and accepts donations in Bitcoin.
Coindesk notes the project has helped over 10,000 people in over 20 cities across the U.S. and works with so-called “community partners” to help secure rights and advance “systematic change.”
As per research by the Center for American Progress, funds, such as the above, can pay bail for those in pre-trial detention that lasts months in some cases. Such detentions have increased by over 400 percent as of 2019.
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