ALS Association’s #VoiceYourLove Campaign Gets Help from TRON, Others

The ALS Association’s new #VoiceYourLove awareness campaign is getting a boost from celebrities and the TRON Foundation, a leading blockchain protocol.

The initiative seeks to honor ALS patients who have lost the ability to speak, with the ultimate goal of discovering new therapies and a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Coinciding with Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14, the campaign challenges people to donate to the association, and to use their cellphone or other device to make “selfie” videos expressing love for people who have had an impact on their lives. Supporters are asked to upload the video or photo on Facebook using the hashtag #VoiceYourLove, and tag friends to get them to join.

Go here to donate and for instructions and testimonial videos from individuals affected by ALS.

Support includes $250,000 from Justin Sun, founder of TRON and CEO of BitTorrent, touted as the world’s largest decentralized peer-to-peer network. Seeking to provide charitable organizations a platform for enhanced transparency, TRON has pledged to use the distributed ledger technology of blockchain to track donation disbursement. That information will be released once the campaign is over, the company said.

“I’m proud to be working with ALS Association to raise money and awareness for a terrible disease,” Sun said in a press release. “The TRON and BitTorrent community has over 100 million people, and it’s statistically possible that thousands of you are afflicted with ALS.”

Binance’s philanthropic arm, the nonprofit Blockchain Charity Foundation (BCF), plans to contribute $150,000 to the cause, and encourages others to donate in BTC, ETH, and BNB cryptocurrencies through its blockchain-powered donation platform. Binance is a Japan-based global cryptocurrency exchange.

Among the first celebrities to join the campaign are actors Courteney Cox and Renee Zellweger, who have posted videos. So far, the effort has netted more than $253,000 in donations.

“Our ask is simple — just get online and express your love for your loved ones and friends,” said Brian Frederick, the ALS Association’s executive vice president of communications. “This campaign features some amazing people with ALS and their families. We are very grateful to TRON and BitTorrent for leveraging their resources and vast network in the blockchain industry to support our work to find a cure for ALS.”

BitTorrent claims more than 100 million active users. TRON, meanwhile, seeks to produce a boundary-free internet that encourages innovation across industries. It acquired BitTorrent last year.

The ALS Association is the leading national nonprofit organization fighting ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. As many as 20,000 U.S. residents have the disorder, according to the organization.