A recent letter published to the Bitcoin developers mailing list written by Square founder Jack Dorsey indicates that a legal defense fund has been created for open source developers in order to protect them “from lawsuits regarding their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem.” Dorsey’s letter is also signed by Alex Morcos of Chaincode Labs and Martin White, the co-founder of Hudson River Trading.
Jack Dorsey’s Open Letter to Bitcoin Developer Mailing List Reveals Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund
According to an open letter from Jack Dorsey, Alex Morcos, and Martin White, “The Bitcoin community is currently the subject of litigation on multiple fronts.” While the letter doesn’t specifically detail any of the legal cases the developers are facing, it does mention that “individual defendants have chosen to capitulate in the absence of legal support.”
However, the letter does hint at the Tulip Trading lawsuit, which involves Craig Wright, the Australian who claims he is Satoshi Nakamoto and the inventor of Bitcoin. “The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund is a nonprofit entity that aims to minimize legal headaches that discourage software developers from actively developing Bitcoin and related projects such as the Lightning Network, Bitcoin privacy protocols, and the like,” the letter from Dorsey, White, and Morcos states. The open letter continues:
The initial activities of the fund will be to take over the coordination of the existing defense of the Tulip Trading lawsuit against certain promoters alleging breach of fiduciary duty and to provide the source of funding for outside counsel. At this time, the fund is not seeking to raise additional funds for its operations, but will do so under the direction of the board if necessary for further legal action or to pay staff.
Bitcoin Community Appreciates Legal Defense Fund Effort
The letter explains that interested people with questions or concerns can email the fund’s team and the email domain “bitcoindefensefund.org” is mentioned. The website seems to be under construction at the moment, as a message from the domain host Namebright notes the site is “coming soon.” Of course, the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund became a trending topic on social media after the open letter was published.
Open-source developer Bryan Bishop tweeted that he was “very grateful to see Jack’s support on the Bitcoin Developer Legal Defense Fund”. Bitcoin Marty Bent wrote: “Thanks to Jack, Alex Morcos and Martin White for stepping in to protect bitcoin developers from legal action so they can focus on what they do best. Really cool to see the mailing list go by bitcoin-dev tonight,” Bent added.
