When it comes to reasons for using Bitcoin, consumers in countries with developed economies — where credit cards, PayPal PayPal and other payment systems function uite well — don’t have many. However, one promising area for the use of the digital currency in developed economies is the realm of micropayments. Here, fixed fees for credit cards and other payment methods can be too large to make such transactions worthwhile. That’s why San Francisco-based startup ChangeTip uses Bitcoin, which doesn’t have these prohibitive costs, to send micropayments. Wednesday, it teams up with Direct Relief, a charity known for its efficient use of donated funds (deemed 100% efficient by Forbes), to launch an eight-day fundraising campaign that aims to help prevent deaths from pregnancy and childbirth complications, one of which occurs in a developing country every two minutes. One $5 (roughly 0.02 Bitcoin at current exchange rates) bottle of prenatal vitamins can provide one safe pregnancy. Because using Bitcoin incurs practically no transaction or foreign exchange costs and because it can be sent internationally without intermediaries, 100% of the donated funds will go toward the cause, which aims to purchase prenatal vitamins for 2,000 expectant mothers in the West African nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia. “Bitcoin can make a big difference [in charitable giving] because it is also able to move the money fast and directly to wherever it needs to be effected,” says Change Tip CEO Nick Sullivan.  Victoria van Eyk, ChangeTip’s head of community, says she first heard about Direct Relief Direct Relief from the site’s users, who suggested it as a charity after the Nepal earth uake, when the site ran a donation campaign with the Red Cross. Although she had not heard of the organi ation then, later on, when she was conceiving of a new philanthropic initiative, she saw that Direct Relief topped the list of the 10 best charities as ranked by Charity Navigator. She reali ed that the nonprofit already had a ChangeTip account, and she called to propose working together. “I explained the potential for Bitcoin as a global donation option. They were like, that’s huge, because we can’t accept yen, we can’t accept yuan, we can’t accept all these other currencies, because of [transaction and foreign exchange fees]. We would love to experiment with Bitcoin as a global currency,” she says. Another benefit is that the organi ation saves on fees. “When people use PayPal or credit cards, it charges the charity to process those [transaction and foreign exchange] fees,” she says, whereas Bitcoin donations will incur practically no cost. Users will have three ways to donate. One is by tweeting messages like, “@ChangeTip, give @DirectRelief $5 in support of #onesafepregnancy.” Second, Reddit users can leave a tip by posting at /u/ChangeTip, “give /u/Direct_Relief $5 in support of #onesafepregnancy.” ChangeTip will monitor the sites for these mentions, and the company will deposit those donations into the Direct Relief wallet for free. Finally, the campaign is set up to be what she calls wallet-agnostic, so all Bitcoin holders, whether or not they are ChangeTip users, can donate directly to Direct Relief’s wallet (which van Eyk says would incur a cost of a fraction of a cent) at this address or via QR code. This will allow anyone to watch those donations to Direct Relief come through directly on the public Bitcoin blockchain, which is an open distributed ledger kept on computers around the world running the Bitcoin software. (The individual gifts of those who donate through ChangeTip will not appear there, as they will be processed on the company’s internal, private ledger.)  While it benefits the charity to move the money directly and at no cost, the campaign also offers ChangeTip a chance to showcase yet another application of its service. So far, users of the site, founded in 2014, have mostly used the platform to send small payments like a beer ($3.50), a coffee ($1.50), a doughnut ($.35) or other amounts on sites like Reddit, Twitter Twitter, Github and Google Google Plus.  “We call ourselves the love button for the internet,” Sullivan says. “When you see a Youtube video that actually makes an impact on your life, instead of just leaving an up vote, you can share your appreciation with buying that person a coffee or a beer — something that shows they deserved a bit more than just a like.”  And now, givers can use the platform to make efficient donations to those in need. “We’re looking at [the initiative with Direct Relief] as an educational campaign, to teach their donors how to start using social media,” says van Eyk. “And of course, I know the Bitcoin community is — they’re really bright people, so they know, when it comes down to charities, who they want to support and who they don’t want to support. So I figured it was just a win-win-win all around.” Victoria van Eyk, ChangeTip’s head of community, says she first heard about Direct Relief Direct Relief from the site’s users, who suggested it as a charity after the Nepal earth uake, when the site ran a donation campaign with the Red Cross. Although she had not heard of the organi ation then, later on, when she was conceiving of a new philanthropic initiative, she saw that Direct Relief topped the list of the 10 best charities as ranked by Charity Navigator. She reali ed that the nonprofit already had a ChangeTip account, and she called to propose working together. Users will have three ways to donate. One is by tweeting messages like, “@ChangeTip, give @DirectRelief $5 in support of #onesafepregnancy.” Second, Reddit users can leave a tip by posting at /u/ChangeTip, “give /u/Direct_Relief $5 in support of #onesafepregnancy.” ChangeTip will monitor the sites for these mentions, and the company will deposit those donations into the Direct Relief wallet for free. Finally, the campaign is set up to be what she calls wallet-agnostic, so all Bitcoin holders, whether or not they are ChangeTip users, can donate directly to Direct Relief’s wallet (which van Eyk says would incur a cost of a fraction of a cent) at this address or via QR code.