As befits a prize for charitable work, Kenahan pledged to donate his 1BTC winnings to the Women’s Annex Foundation, which aims to build women’s digital literacy and increase access to the Internet. He tweeted confirmation of the donation that same day.For Kenahan, that transparency in donations is appealing from an accountability point of view:“[Bitcoin] allows you to create a unique address, for a very specific cause [...] we see both the incoming and outgoing transactions, and we can see that it’s used for a very specific cause.”Those charitable uses of bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, are already apparent from a human rights organization that works in Sri Lanka to homeless outreach shelter Sean’s Post in the US.Perhaps more famously, dogecoin has become a veritable charity fundraising machine, including the $50,000 Doge4Water campaign.Image problemMore generally, the Bitcoin Society is devoted to challenging what Kenahan calls “misinformation” in reporting on bitcoin and to improving perceptions of bitcoin.“One of the biggest issues with bitcoin, and one of the things that hindering the development of our community, is we have this fundamental image problem that oftentimes stems from misinformation or slanderous articles,” he argued.Future plansAs part of that challenge, the Bitcoin Society is planning a number of projects over the next year, including a new website called bitcoincourses.org, which will help to educate people about bitcoin, and a textbook buy-back scheme for US students.“Instead of selling your textbook back to the bookstore … and getting grossly underpaid,” he said, “what we would do is redeem that textbook for bitcoin. That provides a low-risk – it’s money you’ve already spent – way to get involved into a community that has more and more legitimacy every day.”Currently, Kenahan has big plans for expanding the Bitcoin Society team and is recruiting representatives from his alma mater Washington University.“We’re going to be set up in Shanghai, New York, India, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago,” he said.For this self-funded bitcoin champion – Kenahan said he previously traded in the bitcoin markets – 2014 is proving to be a very exciting year indeed.Schoolgirl with computer image via ShutterstockBitcoin SocietycharityMatthew KenahanWomen's Annex FoundationOriginal author: Kadhim Shubber