![Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist Gavin Andresen](https://d15shllkswkct0.cloudfront.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/04/Bitcoin-Foundation-Gavin-Andresen.jpeg)
![Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist Gavin Andresen](https://d15shllkswkct0.cloudfront.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/04/Bitcoin-Foundation-Gavin-Andresen.jpeg)
The Bitcoin Foundation, a U.S. outfit consisting of bitcoin luminaries organized to help promote the cryptocurrency, has seen a great deal of controversy lately and the most recent rumors involve documents and statements floating around the Internet suggesting that the foundation is out of money.
Recently elected Bitcoin Foundation board member Olivier Janssens posted to the Foundation’s own forums and to Reddit that the outfit is “effectively bankrupt,” causing a storm of speculation. Janssens alleges that the Foundation has almost no money left and fired almost 90% of the staff, with some agreeing to remain on board as volunteers.
So far two other members of the Bitcoin Foundation board have chimed in–and the Foundation itself has published a bullet-style blog post replying to Janssens commentary.
Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation Patrick Murck posted, “The Foundation is not bankrupt, but a restructuring is needed. Olivier basically jumped in front of our announcements on that and our annual report on the 2014 finances to be released next week, and he spun it very, very negative.” He also added that 90% of the staff have not been fired, but instead there have been some attrition due to the upcoming restructuring.
In his forum post, Janssens predicted Murck’s response and claims that Murck “will be gone in 2 weeks.”
Chief Scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation Gavin Andresen echoed the sentiment that the money has run out, but also doubled-down with a statement that “The Foundation isn’t bankrupt, but the Board needs to decide whether the responsible thing to do is to continue the organization with a much smaller organization and vision or to dissolve it.”
According to Andresen money coming in from new memberships and renewals is insufficient to fund future vision of the Foundation. He proposed a solution that would put core dev funding into a not-for-profit legal entity so that it could be separated from issues related to the Board itself.
Andresen also spoke to CoinDesk explaining that indeed money was tight and that he was no longer on the Bitcoin Foundation payroll as of April 1st, but he remains on in a capacity as advisor and volunteer.
In the past, the Bitcoin Foundation prided itself in being part of helping fund Bitcoin core development, which is now in jeopardy for a number of core developers who are reportedly already looking for their own funding for the future. On that subject Andresen added that he and other former staff developers would try to avoid being too distracted by what he called “drama.”
In his forum and Reddit post, Janssens defended his coming out with the financial struggles of the Bitcoin Foundation with a call for transparency:
“Since the beginning, the Foundation has been sorely lacking any transparency of its actions,” writes Janssens. “I can no longer in good conscience hide the truth on what I have witnessed in the Bitcoin Foundation since I was elected last month.”
Due to the microcosm nature of the current Bitcoin industry, the Foundation has also had a few previous founding members involved in controversies. For example, Mark Karpeles, ex-CEO of now-defunct exchange MtGox, served on the board as well as well as Charlie Shrem, who was convicted of money laundering and transmitting money linked to the Silk Road.
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