The still-young but famed Pineapple Fund has once again come into the limelight after promising a new round of funding for the US-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). The money raised via this new initiative will go to a research project analyzing the health benefits of MDMA.
Medical Progress
Pineapple Fund has pledged to match any new donation dollar-for-dollar up to the value of $4 million through the entirety of the fundraiser before it wraps up on March 10, 2018.
MAPS plans on using the money to fund its prospective phase-III clinical trials that will cost somewhere around $26 million in total. In case their theories regarding the health benefits of MDMA can stand these experiments successfully, the organization will reach out to the US Food and Drugs Administration for further approval.
Established in 1986, MAPS is optimistic about proving that psychoactive substance such as MDMA can help in providing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health disorders so long as it is used in a controlled setting by medical professionals.
As of today, MDMA is mostly used as a party drug — often together with other harmful additives. MAPS has made it abundantly clear that it doesn’t condone the use of MDMA outside of a medical or research setting.
Note that this is not Pineapple Fund’s first donation to MAPS. Just over a month prior, on Dec 14, it promised 59.89 bitcoin (~ 1 million at that time) to the non-profit.
In case you are not familiar with the Pineapple Fund, it is arguably the world’s largest nonprofit cryptocurrency charity founded by an anonymous Redditor who goes by the pseudonym “Pine.” Established late last year, Pine plans on donating $85 million in equivalent bitcoin to various charitable causes.
“PTSD is a severe condition that affects everyone from sexual assault survivors to military veterans,” Pine wrote while elaborating on the reason behind his decision to initiate the new fundraiser.
“Existing treatments have so much room for improvement, and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has shown great promise. We’re offering the matching grant because we think the psychedelic and cryptocurrency communities can work together to finish funding Phase 3 clinical trials.”
The dramatic growth in cryptocurrency prices over the past few months has bestowed the realm of non-profit psychedelic research a new source of financial support.
For the uninitiated, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are a medium of exchange created and stored digitally using a decentralized technology called blockchain. It’s a peer-to-peer monetary system that’s immune to censorship and fraud to a large extent, thus doing away with the need for third parties such as banks and regulators.
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Author: BTCManager.com
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