Jack Dorsey Starts a New Fund to Provide Legal Defense to Bitcoin Developers

Dorsey continues to work on new bitcoin-related endeavors by launching a new fund to provide legal defense for BTC developers. Called “Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund,” its first activity will be to assist in the ongoing Tulip Trading lawsuit.

• In an email sent to BTC developers, Dorsey described the new fund as 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.”
• It comes as the community has seen a growing number of “multi-front litigation and continued threats,” which drive individual defendants to capitulate in the absence of legal support.
• The main goal of the fund is to “defend developers from lawsuits regarding their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem.” This includes “finding and retaining defense counsel, developing litigation strategy, and paying legal bills.”
• It’s worth noting that the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund will be completely free and voluntary for developers if they decide to seek assistance.
• It will have a board comprised of Dorsey, academic Martin White, and Chaincode Labs co-founder Alex Morcos, responsible for choosing the lawsuits and defendants it works with.
• The fund has already chosen its first case as it will “take over coordination of the existing defense of the Tulip Trading lawsuit against certain developers alleging breach of fiduciary duty and provide the source of funding for outside counsel.”
• The Tulip case is notorious in the crypto space as the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto – Craig Wright – decided to sue numerous BTC developers over an alleged hack that resulted in him losing over $4 billion worth of BTC. Wright believes the developers have to intervene and reverse the transaction.