Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has pledged millions of dollars in BNB (BNB) as aid relief for those affected by the large earthquake that struck Morocco on Sept. 8, causing at least 2,000 fatalities in Marrakech alone, the country’s fourth-largest city.
According to a Sept. 11 announcement, Binance will airdrop up to $3 million in BNB to users identified as living in the affected areas.
The earthquake was magnitude 7 on the Richter scale, which categorizes it as “major.”
Changpeng Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance, called the earthquake “devastating” for the Moroccan people and said his heart goes out to the country.
Our hearts go out to the people in Morocco#Binance to donate $3,000,000 in #BNB to our users in Morocco
We standby our users in times of need. Stay strong. https://t.co/lQzLvhuuQ3
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) September 11, 2023
He also called for users unaffected by the incident to distribute the funds to those most in need:
“For Moroccan users who receive these donations but are unimpacted by the earthquake, we ask them to pass the funds on to those most in need.”
Binance said it will identify users in the region using a proof-of-address protocol completed before the disaster. Users in the Marrakech-Safi province, the most affected region, will receive $100 worth of BNB directly to their Binance accounts.
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For Moroccan users outside of the Marrakech-Safi area, Binance plans to airdrop $10 in BNB each. It expects nearly 70,000 Binance users living in the country to receive some level of aid starting Sept. 12.
It also said it created a public wallet address that is accepting contributions for additional aid, which can be made in BNB, Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT) and Binance USDC (BUSD).
In March, Binance carried out a similar aid scheme to those affected by the intense earthquakes that hit the Turkey-Syria border region, also with $100 airdrops in BNB tokens.
Crypto has been increasingly used as a medium through which aid is made accessible to victims of disasters and as a means of charity.
Following the devastation of the Turkish-Syrian earthquake, many major players in the Web3 space used crypto as a means of dispersing aid to impacted communities, including Binance, The Sandbox, Bitget, Tether and Gate.io, among others.
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