Symbol Syndicate
Public records raise at least one point you should look into before giving.
What it says it does
The Symbol Syndicate is dedicated to designing, developing, and maintaining mission critical, open-source software, and improving public education on artificial intelligence, blockchain and other emerging technologies. In addition, the organization maintains clients and supporting code and products for multiple cryptocurrency protocols and DeFi projects, including (but not limited to) Bitcoin, Solana, NEM and Symbol.
- Income
- $2.0 million
- Spending
- $986,825
- Spent on programs
- 77%
- Reserves
- 12.3 months of spending
- Largest source of income
- donations and private grants, 100%
- Employees
- 6
- Highest pay
- $26,372, president & ceo
Source: Form 990 for the year ending December 31, 2022, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Financial health
Strong: 100 out of 100. Higher than 87% of charities in its peer group (science, $1m to $10m).
Reserves
35 of 35Spendable reserves would cover 12.3 months of spending.
Debt
20 of 20It owes 0% of what it owns.
Living within its means
15 of 15Income exceeded spending by 51% of income.
Spending floor
15 of 1577% of spending went to programs and raising each dollar of donations cost 0 cents.
Source: Form 990 for the year ending December 31, 2022, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Governance
Good: 78 out of 100. Higher than 31% of charities in its peer group (science, $1m to $10m).
Independent board
18 of 252 of 3 voting board members are independent.
Conflict of interest policy
15 of 15Has a written conflict of interest policy.
Whistleblower policy
8 of 8Has a written whistleblower policy.
Record keeping policy
7 of 7Has a written policy on keeping and destroying records.
Board minutes
5 of 5Keeps minutes of board meetings.
Board sees the tax return
10 of 10Gave the board a copy of this return before filing it.
Pay set independently
5 of 5Sets its chief executive's pay through independent review and comparison.
Independent check of accounts
0 of 15Its accounts were not audited or reviewed by an independent accountant.
No reported misuse
10 of 10Reports no diversion of assets, excess benefits or loans to insiders.
Source: Form 990 for the year ending December 31, 2022, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Impact evidence
Describes programs. Its tax return describes what it does but we have found no measurable results in it.
Programs described in its return (4)
- $490,029 spent. Most of 2022 was spent in finding the organizations voice and defining its mission; building the organization's brand identity; learning the rules and ropes with regards to a non-profit organization; setting up internal structure and operations; maintaining two cryptocurrency clients (NIS, for the NEM blockchain; and Catapult, for the Symbol blockchain); product improvements; and improving general education and awareness. At this time, the organization has six defined programs. Education and Awareness (shortened to Education): A program centered around increasing the general awareness of our products, and improving public education for emerging technologies. We also define any social media activity, assets, or asset creation not directly related to fundraising as education and awareness. Research: A program centered around high-quality research and data-driven reports. Research may be (but has not yet been) requested by a donor, a university, or another organization; or it may be internal research we undertake. All research created and undertaken with this program is available publicly, or will be available publicly (once completed and presented in accordance with our usual quality standards). Products: A program centered around development, design and maintenance of high quality open-source products used by the general public, such as cryptocurrency wallets or trading infrastructure. We define a product as anything that has a defined consumer - that is, a human or AI user that ingests our product in order to perform a specific function. Client: A specialized program for the development, design and maintenance of cryptocurrency clients, networking clients, and other types of clients as defined by the client-server model. Due to the specialized nature of this software, this is considered a separate program to the products category.Tooling & Infrastructure: Any software or scripts for small tools and infrastructure that the public may use in collaboration or connection with products produced by the organization (either our organization, or another), but software that does not have a large enough scope to be defined as a product. An example could be a Python script that helps the general public collect and correctly categorize their cryptocurrency transactions for reporting purposes to their local tax agency, and outputs these transactions in a format to be ingested by Lukka (a third party software used in partnership with the IRS for ingestion of cryptocurrency reporting). Other (Program): Any other program that does not yet have a defined category - usually experimental. Generally, the work byproduct of these programs is not public by default, as the result may not meet our quality standards and not be fit for general public consumption in its current form.Key Accomplishments for 2022 include:Education and Awareness: We created digital avatars (2D art, character sheets, and in some cases 3D models) and a CC0-licensed t-shirt series to recognize key contributors in open-source and cryptocurrency communities, rewarding their work in non-financial, creative ways. We also continued to develop and refine the organizations brand identity and voice.
- $201,285 spent. Tooling & Infrastructure: The organization overhauled their public software presence across GitHub; improved documentation; streamlined repositories for code storage and cleaned up any link rot (a term used to denote a dead hyperlink or a hyperlink that no longer points to its originally targeted web file, page, or server).
- $28,826 spent. Products: The organization primarily released security and bug fixes to their products. Beyond this, there were no notable achievements. Post-mortem reports on patched security issues were made publicly available on HackMD, an open-source repository for markdown format documentation.
- OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 4: Client: The organization released multiple security and bug fixes to their client(s). There were no notable achievements. Post-mortem reports on patched security issues were made publicly available on HackMD, an open-source repository for markdown format documentation. OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 5: Tooling & Infrastructure: The organization overhauled their public software presence across GitHub; improved documentation; streamlined repositories for code storage and cleaned up any link rot (a term used to denote a dead hyperlink or a hyperlink that no longer points to its originally targeted web file, page, or server).
Source: Form 990 for the year ending December 31, 2022, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Legitimacy checks
Is it registered with the IRS? Passed.
Listed in the IRS master file of tax-exempt organizations as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Has the IRS revoked its tax-exempt status? Passed.
Not on the IRS automatic revocation list.
Source: Automatic revocation of exemption list, Internal Revenue Service, file dated November 6, 2026.
Are donations tax-deductible? Passed.
On the IRS list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions.
Source: Publication 78 data: organizations eligible for tax-deductible contributions, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Is it keeping up with its IRS filings? Caution.
Most recent return on file covers the year ending December 2022. Organizations that miss three years of returns lose their exemption.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
How long has it been tax-exempt? Passed.
Recognized by the IRS since March 2025.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Is it in good standing with state regulators? Passed.
Not on California's list of charities barred from soliciting. Other states are not yet checked.
Source: May Not Operate or Solicit for Charitable Purposes list, California Attorney General, Registry of Charities and Fundraisers, file dated November 4, 2026.
Ratings and checks are our reading of public records, using the published method. They are not a statement about anyone's honesty. If you work for this organization, you can send corrections or results, confirm you want gifts through Veridonate, or ask to be removed from giving.