Donate with Monero (XMR)
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This fund supports individuals working to preserve truth and freedom in the most dangerous places on Earth. Journalists, protestors, and any other individual or group operating within a hostile environment can apply for emergency grants from the Fund, if they can demonstrate that receiving funding through traditional financial infrastructure is either impossible or life threatening. The majority of Fund monies are held in Monero, the privacy-focused cryptocurrency.
If you have questions or want to make an application for funding, contact us: pileus.fund@proton.me. If you are applying for funding, DO NOT SHARE ANY SENSITIVE INFORMATION BY EMAIL - a secure communication channel will be set up to discuss the details of your situation and the specific needs for funding.
In order for the Fund's administrators to be held accountable to donors and other supporters, the entire Fund's balance will be transferred to a viewable account address for 24 hours once a quarter, with the account address and private view key being published on this webpage for those 24 hours. This will allow anyone to view the Fund's balance once a quarter. After the 24 hour period has passed, the total Fund balance will be transferred back into a cold wallet for storage. Alongside the published account address and private view key, a report will be released detailing any incoming donations and outgoing fund payments during the preceding quarter (with sensitive information on Fund recipients redacted). The first of these public audits will take place on July 1st, 2025, at the Fund's launch. Should the Fund need to be liquidated for any reason, all held crypto assets will be donated to the Monero development team and the Tor Project in equal measure.
This phase will run from the Fund's launch on July 1st, 2025, and will conclude on December 31st 2025. During this phase, no outgoing Fund payments will be made, and no funding applications will be accepted. The purpose of Phase 1 is to grow the Fund so that funding can be provided to succesful applicants during Phase 2.
This phase will run from January 1st 2026 to June 30th, 2026. During this phase, funding applications will be accepted and the first Fund payments will be made to successful applicants. Donations will continue to be accepted.
You should be wary of fundraising projects that sit outside of traditional charity/non-profit regulation. For those concerned about the donation addresses being changed by a malicious actor, in the Pileus Fund Github repository (https://github.com/PileusFund/Pileus), there is a document titled "Pileus_Fund_Addresses.odt", which contains the BTC and XMR donation addresses. This document has been signed by the Pileus Fund and can be verified using the Fund's public PGP key and signature, both available on the Github repo. Read the README.md file for details. The Fund's PGP key can also be requested by emailing pileus.fund@proton.me. Regarding the trustworthiness of the Fund and its administrators, this is a work in progress, and systems such as the quarterly audit are being implemented to try and establish some transparency within an obviously opaque financial project (given the Fund's focus in XMR and the sensitivity of Fund applicant's data). Any suggestions for how this process can be improved are appreciated.