Local time on January 8, a serious wildfire broke out in Los Angeles and its surrounding areas, burning thousands of homes and covering an area of tens of thousands of hectares. So far, the fire has burned more than 15,000 acres of land, forcing nearly 180,000 residents to evacuate and another 200,000 people have received evacuation orders.

The rapidly spreading fire not only threatened millions of California residents but also several cryptocurrency companies and members of the crypto community. In fact, many people have lost their homes and property, including hardware wallets.

 

The wildfire has burned more than 15,000 acres of land in Southern California, including major areas such as Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Pasadena. In addition to residences, many cryptocurrency companies have also been affected.

 

The staff of the Santa Monica Bitcoin office is located directly south of the raging Palisades and Sunset. Several Swan Bitcoin staff who hosted the Pacific Bitcoin Conference in Santa Monica are also located directly south of the fire.

 

The headquarters of the blockchain service provider BlockDaemon is located in Los Angeles, as is another cryptocurrency game developer SuperVerse. The headquarters of the blockchain-based ID and tokenization company Spring Labs is located in the nearby Marina del Ray. These companies have reported significant losses, including the destruction of hardware wallets containing cryptocurrency assets.

 

Some companies are luckier. So far, the Crypto.com Stadium in downtown Los Angeles, a cultural landmark of the city, has not caught fire. The cryptocurrency entertainment venues DaBank in Hawthorne and Jungla in North Hollywood have also survived the wildfire.

 

However, the wildfire has affected not only cryptocurrency companies but also cryptocurrency users. Some residents lost their cryptocurrency wallets in the wildfire. Crypto KOL Monty said on the X platform that his 70-year-old aunt lost her apartment in the Los Angeles fire. Most of her savings were in cryptocurrency, but she lost her wallet and mnemonic words and had no backup. According to the comments, her wallet mainly contained Bitcoin.

 

In order to provide assistance to the relevant personnel, some charities and non-profit organizations providing assistance in the local area are accepting cryptocurrency and stock donations.

 

The cryptocurrency donation platform The Giving Block has launched an "Emergency Response Fundraising Campaign" to donate to non-profit organizations actively assisting in the Los Angeles wildfire rescue work. The fundraising activity allows the public to choose to donate cryptocurrency from seven non-profit organizations.

 

They include the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, the First Responders Children's Foundation, the Global Empowerment Mission, the San Diego Humane Society, All Hands and Hearts and Direct Relief.

 

During the donation activity, the platform encourages the public to do their best to help and donate cryptocurrency, stocks, DAF (Donor Advised Fund, donors can immediately obtain tax deduction benefits and have the right to suggest the use of funds by setting up a DAF account) or cards to organizations providing food, shelter and medical services.

 

Another cryptocurrency-focused donation website Givepact shared details of the foundations accepting crypto asset donations.

 

They include Baby2Baby, a charity that specializes in providing diapers and clothes for poor children, the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, the California Fire Foundation, the Los Angeles County Animal Care Foundation and the California Community Foundation.

 

The platform said that the public can donate more than 30 kinds of cryptocurrencies to these charities and non-profit organizations, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Avax, Dogecoin, etc.

 

It is worth mentioning that a prediction platform has been questioned for its "sick" predictions in the wildfire incident. Many users on the platform have created various prediction markets using the wildfire incident to predict the spread of the fire, when it will be controlled and the resignation of potential political figures. One X user claimed: "Betting on wildfires is sick", and another user said that betting on such a tragedy "is undoubtedly extremely shameless". Some users even worried that in order to succeed in betting, gamblers might be stimulated to cause more fires.

 

In response, the platform issued a disclaimer saying: "The devastating Palisades fire is such an event that the platform can provide valuable real-time answers for those directly affected, while traditional media cannot do this."