Late last year, the staff of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) returned to work to find a truly extraordinary development had occurred. The evening before they had submitted a request for funding that seemed too good to be true:
On Reddit, a user with the handle @PineappleFund announced their intention to donate $86 million worth of bitcoin to charitable causes. Groups that wanted to apply could simply do so through the Pineapple Fund website.
MAPS figured it was worth a shot and by the next day its logo had already appeared on the site under “charities supported.” They received 59.8 bitcoins (BTC) an amount initially valued at a million dollars. A ripple effect began: Four days later another anonymous donor donated 51.54 bitcoins. Six days later, Lunyr (LUN) tokens worth over $769,000 were anonymously given.
This past week, MAPS was given another cryptocurrency opportunity: The Pineapple Fund, a group of an unknown number started by an anonymous philanthropist known as Pine, announced it would match the next $4 million donated to the nonprofit.
The offer expires on March 10 and has the potential to be a game-changer for MAPS, which needs $8.7 million to make their goal of offering MDMA-assisted psychotherapy a legal tool for survivors with PTSD a reality.
If funding arrives and all goes to plan, it’s expected that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will give MDMA-assisted therapy, still shaking off taboo, its stamp of approval by 2021.