“Pine” talks about his personal story and the power of psychedelics
Late last year, an anonymous organization, the Pineapple Fund, came out of nowhere and started writing large checks to nonprofits. The fund had a simple website and stated that the founder (or founders) were pledging a whopping $85 million of their Bitcoin fortune to charity, including to a relatively obscure, but rising star in Silicon Valley dedicated to advancing psychedelic-assisted medical therapy, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
Needless to say, this caused a swirl of interest in the media, not just because of the fascination with the new-money guard of early Bitcoin enthusiasts, but because the only way to get ahold of the mysterious fund was an email address, which I’m sure is being overwhelmed with solicitations.
I managed to get an interview with the founder of the Pineapple Fund, who goes by “Pine”, and asked about the decision to give $4 million in matching grants to MAPS. Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
I should note that I decided to post this as a transcript, rather than paraphrase the interview because talking about psychedelics is such a deeply personal experience and the nuance is important, even if there are some grammar issues with the un-edited response. I got a feeling for Pine’s personality in his/her emails and wanted to preserve that for readers.
Me: Briefly, why did you start the Pineapple Fund? What makes it unique?
Pine: I had got into the world of cryptocurrency since when it was an obscure phenomenon, and ended up accumulating a large amount of Bitcoins. As years went on and my life went on, my holdings slowly became a ludicrous amount of money.
So many people in this world who’s put in far more effort and have far less. Spending that money on myself is wasting it. The marginal value of money for me is minimal. From a value perspective, I create value by re-distributing most of the money to people who’ll enjoy it more than me. Crypto almost became a weight on me.
Source/More: Bitcoin Mega-Philanthropist ‘Pineapple’ Talks About Psychedelic Research
