Jack Dorsey Sets Up Legal Defense Fund To Protect Bitcoin Developers From Litigation Headaches

Block, Inc SQ CEO and Bitcoin BTC/USD advocate Jack Dorsey has set up a Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund to provide financial aid to Bitcoin developers in the event that they find themselves on the receiving end of unwarranted legal action.

What Happened: In an email to the bitcoin-dev mailing list on Jan. 12, Dorsey indicated that the main purpose of the non-profit fund would be to help developers obtain a suitable defense counsel, litigation strategy, and pay legal bills.

“The Bitcoin community is currently the subject of multi-front litigation,” Dorsey stated in the email. “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 fund’s first call to action will be to take over coordination of the existing defense of the Tulip Trading lawsuit against developers concerning the “alleged breach of fiduciary duty” over rights to a Bitcoin fortune.

The email was also signed by Chaincode Labs co-founder Alex Morcos and academic researcher Martin White. Together with Dorsey, the three make up the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund Board.

Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter Inc TWTR last year with an intention to focus on building Bitcoin-related infrastructure at his payments company Square, which rebranded to Block, Inc.

At the Bitcoin Miami conference in June 2021, Dorsey went on record to tell the event’s audience: “I don’t think there is anything more important in my lifetime to work on.”

Last week, Block, Inc began hiring a team to develop a next-generation Bitcoin mining microchip in-house.

Price Action: On Wednesday morning, Bitcoin was trading at $43,825.73, up 5.08% in the last 24 hours.

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