Former Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey has announced plans to create a “Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund” with Chaincode Labs co-founder Alex Morcos and Martin White, who looks like a scholar at the University of Sussex.
This announcement was sent on January 12th at 00:13:45 UTC from an email address that appears to belong to Dorsey on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list for Bitcoin developers.
Cointelegraph contacted board members to verify the validity of the email, but did not immediately respond.
According to the announcement, the fund will help provide legal protection to Bitcoin developers who are “currently subject to multifront proceedings.”
Email to the Bitcoin Development Mailing List @jack Explanation of Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund pic.twitter.com/y1XY3XG0IR
— Zack Voell (@zackvoell) January 12, 2022
“Proceedings and ongoing threats have had the intended effect. Individual defendants chose to surrender in the absence of legal assistance,” he said, often independent and therefore legal. Mentions open source developers who are susceptible to pressure.
“We propose a coordinated and formal response to protect the developers.”
The announcement further describes the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund as “a non-profit organization aimed at minimizing legal headaches that discourage software developers from actively developing Bitcoin and related projects.” Did.
“The main purpose of this fund is to protect developers from proceedings related to activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as finding and retaining lawyers, developing litigation strategies, and paying statutory costs,” he said.
Initially, the fund will include volunteers and part-time lawyers for developers to “use when they want”, but the email will say “Which proceedings and defendants will the fund’s board support?” You are responsible for deciding. Protect. “
“At this time, the fund is not trying to raise additional funding for its operation, but if additional legal action or payment to staff is required, it will be raised at the direction of the board.”
According to the email, the fund’s first project is to take over the existing defenses of Ramona Ang’s “tulip trading proceedings” against developers, including Ira Kleiman, on suspicion of fraud over access to BTC’s property.
Related: The Nano Foundation sponsors legal funding to provide agents for victims of BitGrail hacks
Dorsey, who resigned as Twitter CEO at the end of November 2021, is a longtime supporter of Bitcoin. It’s unclear if Dorsey will leave the social media company and focus on Square’s plans to develop a decentralized Bitcoin exchange.
On November 19, a decentralized exchange project called tbDEX released a white paper detailing plans to create a message protocol designed to promote trust relationships independent of federation to control access. Did.
