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From: jack <jack@squareup.com>
To: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
Cc: alex@chaincode.com
Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 00:13:45 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <282EF45D-78A4-45E6-BCA2-3ADE6C8D4E11@squareup.com> (raw)

To Bitcoin Developers:

The Bitcoin community is currently the subject of multi-front litigation. Litigation and continued threats are having their intended effect; individual defendants have chosen to capitulate in the absence of legal support. Open-source developers, who are often independent, are especially susceptible to legal pressure. In response, we propose a coordinated and formalized response to help defend developers. 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 main purpose of this Fund is to defend developers from lawsuits regarding their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem, including finding and retaining defense counsel, developing litigation strategy, and paying legal bills. This is a free and voluntary option for developers to take advantage of if they so wish. The Fund will start with a corps of volunteer and part-time lawyers. The board of the Fund will be responsible for determining which lawsuits and defendants it will help defend.

The Fund’s first activities will be to 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. At this time, the Fund is not seeking to raise additional money for its operations but will do so at the direction of the board if needed for further legal action or to pay for staff.

If you have questions or concerns, you can email info@bitcoindefensefund.org. Will share more information in the near future.

Sincerely,
Jack Dorsey, Alex Morcos, and Martin White
(Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund Board)


             reply	other threads:[~2022-01-12  0:13 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 16+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-01-12  0:13 jack [this message]
2022-01-12  0:47 ` [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund René Pickhardt
2022-01-12  1:42   ` Christopher Allen
2022-01-13 19:25   ` Alex Morcos
2022-01-12  9:59 SatoshiSingh
2022-01-13 10:13 Prayank
2022-01-13 18:20 ` jack
2022-01-14 13:21   ` Aymeric Vitte
2022-01-14 18:18     ` qmccormick13
2022-01-14 18:34       ` Jeremy
2022-01-21 14:36   ` Zac Greenwood
2022-01-13 18:28 ` Steve Lee
2022-01-13 18:54   ` Alex Schoof
2022-01-13 19:28     ` Steve Lee
2022-01-13 19:05   ` Jeremy
2022-01-13 20:50     ` Antoine Riard

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