Bitcoin Users Are Funding a DIY Coronavirus Vaccine

Anonymous bitcoiners are taking the search for a coronavirus vaccine into their own hands — bypassing academia, pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

The “biohacking” effort by a group known as CoroHope is being funded with crowdsourced bitcoin (BTC) donations. The group claims it has a biologist on board with 10 years of experience building similar vaccines for the FDA. Prominent community members such as Blockstream cofounder Mark Friedenbach are vouching for the unknown team. (“It is not a scam,” he tweeted.)

And it’s drawing on bitcoin’s decentralized ethos for inspiration.

“Cryptocurrency is uniquely able to help with this problem because, like us, it’s outside the traditional system. The original backers are bitcoiners, and we’d love to keep working with bitcoin and bitcoin developers on this problem. We need all the help we can get,” a CoroHope spokesperson told CoinDesk by email.

The group sees the FDA as a potential hindrance…