Pineapple Fund Donates $1 Million in Bitcoins to the SENS Research Foundation

The Pineapple Fund is one of the more sensible responses to sudden wealth that I've seen in my time, a charitable giving initiative set up by someone who finds themselves a multi-millionaire as a result of the enormous rise in the valuation of blockchain initiatives over the past couple of years. We might hope that this will inspire other newly wealthy long-term holders of cryptocurrencies to take similar steps to support the change they want to see in the world.

Today's good news is that the anonymous principal of the Pineapple Fund has chosen to donate $1 million in bitcoins to the SENS Research Foundation, one of the larger donations to SENS rejuvenation research made over the years. Thank you to all involved! This will make a large difference over the next few years, allowing the SENS Research Foundation scientists and their allies to unblock more of the lines of research that lead to a comprehensive toolkit of therapies to control the causes of aging. As that work spins out into the broader research community, we will see a blossoming of treatments that can reverse age-related disease and greatly reduce the suffering of old age.

The breaking news today is that the SENS Research Foundation has managed to secure the sum of $1 million in bitcoins from the Pineapple Fund. The Pineapple Fund is a charitable initiative run by a very generous person who wishes to remain anonymous and has a large number of bitcoins to donate to charities. The suggestion was made on Reddit to the founder of the Pineapple Fund to donate some bitcoins to SENS and they agreed. Thanks to the work of a number of people in the community, Dr. Aubrey de Grey was alerted and he promptly arrived to talk to the amazingly generous person behind the Pineapple Fund.

"Sometime around the early days of bitcoin, I saw the promise of decentralized money and decided to mine/buy/trade some magical internet tokens. The expectation shattering returns of bitcoin over many years has lead to an amount far more than I can spend. What do you do when you have more money than you can ever possibly spend? Donating most of it to charity is what I'm doing."

So who is the mysterious caped crusader behind this awesome initiative? We do not know who you are but we know why you do what you do and we think it is fantastic! There is only so much money a person can spend and giving the rest away to help charities in need is one of the greatest things a person can do. From everyone working in the field of rejuvenation biotechnology and the community who support a future free from age-related diseases, thank you!

Link: https://www.leafscience.org/the-pineapple-fund-commits-1-million-to-the-sens-research-foundation/

Comments

Merry Christmas SENS and a happy New Year!

Posted by: Morpheus at December 15th, 2017 6:41 AM

well done guys

Posted by: scott emptage at December 15th, 2017 6:52 AM

OMG that is good news! Long live the anonymous donor, may you be among the first to reach 200!

Posted by: Paul at December 15th, 2017 7:09 AM

Fantastic news ! Thanks so much to the anonymous donor and the persons who brought SENS to his attention !

The owner of the Pineapple Fund was a visionary to invest in Bitcoin back then, and he remains a visionary for "investing" into rejuvenation through his donation to the SENS Research Foundation. He'll get returns in the form of a better health for him and his loved ones.

Posted by: Spede at December 15th, 2017 7:55 AM

Great community effort indeed :)

Posted by: Steve Hill at December 15th, 2017 9:03 AM

If the SENS Foundation and their collaborators at Yale can get Glucosepane treatments out of the lab and into the clinic, then this would be something that definitely would never have happened for another 20 to 25 years without the efforts of the SENS Foundation and visionary donors such as the Pineapple Fund.

Posted by: Jim at December 15th, 2017 9:37 AM

Applauds

Posted by: JohnD at December 15th, 2017 10:30 AM

Wow! This is a marvelous Christmas present! Thank you!

Posted by: Antonio at December 15th, 2017 10:45 AM

Excellent news, and many thanks to the donor!

Posted by: James Corbally at December 15th, 2017 11:13 AM

So excellent news! <3

Posted by: Ariel at December 15th, 2017 11:48 AM

Please also support LEAF on the Project for Awesome 2017 weekend! We have been supporting SENS videos also so please share the love as more than one charity can win a prize. Please vote for each SENS and LEAF video as every vote counts towards the total.

http://projectforawesome.com/?charity=7RGRgIDG

Posted by: Steve Hill at December 15th, 2017 4:00 PM

Hi all ! Amazing and Congrats this will help tremendously, thank you immensely to donor and merry christmas to you.

Posted by: CANanonymity at December 16th, 2017 12:08 AM

I mailed Cryoprize, New Organ (NO), Organ Preservation Alliance (OPA) and Solving Organ Shortage (SOS) and asked them to apply.

Posted by: Gekki at December 16th, 2017 11:05 AM

On a less positive note, looking at the quote on Reddit from Aubrey de Grey it looks like the financial situation at the SENS Research Foundation was worse than they have been letting on:

"Having myself donated most of my personal wealth to the Foundation after I inherited it in 2011, I want firstly to echo the admiration of this donor that so many here have expressed. Since that money ran out a year ago, we have indeed been gruesomely short of funds"

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7jj0oa/im_donating_5057_btc_to_charitable_causes/dr6r24x/

Posted by: Jim at December 17th, 2017 2:39 AM

Jim: That was already known. He is referring to the money from his mother, that run out last year, and a few months later there came the money from Michael Greve, that is more or less the same yearly amount, so SRF budget has barely changed, it's still around $4-5 million per year. It's indeed a small amount, but it hasn't changed so much.

Posted by: Antonio at December 17th, 2017 6:56 AM

Ok thanks Antonio, I thought AdG was saying that they were "gruesomely short of funds" despite Michael Greve's generous contribution.

Posted by: Jim at December 17th, 2017 11:18 AM

It was probably an overstatement.

Posted by: Antonio at December 17th, 2017 5:17 PM

I'm somewhat hesitant to say this, but Dr. de Grey's characterization of the situation was no exaggeration. Although funding had been sufficient to keep the organization going and continue funding existing research for the first year after nearly all of Dr. de Grey's personal donation was spent, the situation for 2018 was looking rather grim up until just recently. The Pineapple donation, and several others that I'm delighted to say will be announced in coming days or weeks, have ensured that we can continue funding existing projects and even expand into new areas, with some assurance that we won't be setting ourselves up to run out of runway at the end of 2018.

Posted by: Michael at December 17th, 2017 6:03 PM

Thanks for the clarification, Michael.

Posted by: Antonio at December 17th, 2017 6:10 PM

Cash them in NOW before the big crypto-currency bubble bursts! With the right software anyone can make a new type of block-chain crypto coin in around 10 minutes.

Posted by: Dan at December 17th, 2017 8:35 PM
Comment Submission

Post a comment; thoughtful, considered opinions are valued. New comments can be edited for a few minutes following submission. Comments incorporating ad hominem attacks, advertising, and other forms of inappropriate behavior are likely to be deleted.

Note that there is a comment feed for those who like to keep up with conversations.