Jack Dorsey Announces Plans for Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund

The fund will provide legal defense for bitcoin developers and will include a team of volunteers and part-time lawyers.

Former Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey has announced plans to create a "bitcoin" with Chaincode Labs co-founders Alex Morcos and Martin White (who appears to be an academic at the University of Sussex). Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund.

The announcement was sent to the bitcoin developers mailing list bitcoin-dev at 00:13:45 UTC on Jan. 12 via an email address that appears to belong to Dorsey.

Cointelegraph reached out to board members to confirm the legitimacy of the email, but did not immediately hear back.

The fund will help provide legal defenses for bitcoin developers, who are “currently facing a multi-faceted lawsuit,” the statement said.

Jack's Email to Bitcoin Developers Mailing List Explains Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund

— Zack Voell (@zackvoell) January 12, 2022

"The lawsuits and ongoing threats are having their intended effect; individual defendants choose to cave without legal backing," the email said, referring to open-source developers, who are often independent and thus vulnerable to legal pressure .

"We have come up with a coordinated formal response to help defend developers."

The statement also described the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund as a "non-profit entity designed to minimize the legal issues that hinder software developers from actively developing Bitcoin and related projects."

“The primary purpose of the fund is to protect developers from lawsuits regarding their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem, including finding and engaging defense attorneys, developing litigation strategies, and paying legal fees,” the statement said.

Initially, the fund will include volunteers and part-time attorneys "that developers can utilize if they wish," though, the email also noted, "the fund's board of directors will be responsible for deciding which lawsuits and defendants it will help defend."

"At this time, the fund is not seeking to raise additional funding for its operations, but if further legal action or staff costs are required, it will do so at the direction of the board."

According to the email, the fund's first project will be to take on Ramona Ang's defense of the "Tulip deal lawsuit" against developers including Ira Kleiman, who is accused of misconduct in acquiring bitcoin wealth .

Dorsey, a longtime Bitcoin supporter, resigned as Twitter's CEO at the end of November 2021. It's unclear if Dorsey left the social media company to focus on Square's plans to develop a decentralized bitcoin exchange.

On Nov. 19, the decentralized exchange project called tbDEX released a white paper detailing its plans to create an information protocol designed to foster trust relationships without relying on federations to control access. (Cointelegraph)