The Litecoin Foundation, a not-for-profit organization with the aim of promoting litecoin and blockchain technology, is running out of money and will be looking to boost its sales of merchandise at its upcoming summit this month.

The Foundation seemingly relies solely on donations and the sale of merchandise for its income, and in the nine months ending 31 March it actually made a loss on these items of $70,430. After accounting for expenditures such as advertising, marketing, staff costs and taxes, the Foundation made a net loss of $281,630.

Donations – usually the largest portion of Litecoin Foundation’s income – have fallen sharply at the beginning of the financial year. 

Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin and managing director of the Litecoin Foundation, told CoinDesk in an interview in August that the crypto bear market during the latter half of 2018 and the first half of 2019 had hit donations. Lee’s personal donations to the Foundation, according to the interview, account for around 80% of its funding.

Litecoin Not Connected

While the Litecoin Foundation appears to be struggling, Litecoin itself is up nearly 90% since the start of the year, despite some sharp losses since its $145 peak in June.

Indeed, the Foundation is not connected to Litecoin the cryptocurrency, nor the blockchain network on which it is built. All that LTC would  lose if the Foundation folded, would be the organization responsible for promoting it across the world. 

Lee, however, said in his interview in August that he remained committed to funding the Foundation. He said:

The goal, of course, is to get Litecoin Foundation to be self-sustaining from donations, partnerships and merchandise sales. Until we get to that point, I have and will continue to support the Litecoin Foundation financially as necessary.

Promotion Costs

The Foundation has been criticized for forming expensive partnerships: it announced this year it was teaming up with the Miami Dolphins, Nascar driver Landon Cassill and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Lee explained on the Foundation’s blog:

Litecoin Foundation’s purpose is two-fold: work on litecoin adoption and work on development for litecoin. For the past months, I believed adoption and awareness was a more important focus for me than development.

The most important event of the year for the Foundation, however, is yet to come. It is where the Litecoin Foundation can hope to recoup some of its losses in merchandising sales, and with the roster of stars involved from the above-mentioned partnerships, the Litecoin Summit 2019 takes place during October 28-29.

 

Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pixabay.com