Author: Alex Schoof 2022-01-13 18:54:35
Published on: 2022-01-13T18:54:35+00:00
The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund was created to defend developers from lawsuits related to their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem. The purpose of the fund is to provide developers with free and voluntary legal support, including finding and retaining defense counsel, developing litigation strategy, and paying legal bills. The board of the Fund will be responsible for determining which lawsuits and defendants it will help defend. While there are positives to this initiative, such as allowing developers to focus on development instead of worrying about legal issues and providing financial assistance, there are also concerns. One concern is that if someone publicly disagrees with a board member of the defense fund about a contentious issue, they may be putting themselves at risk in the future where they won't be able to get support from the fund because they spoke out against a board member. This kind of concern can be mitigated through policy and governance, but is the kind of thing you want to tackle before it becomes an issue.One suggestion proposed was to change the name of the fund as 'The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund' could be confusing or misleading for newbies. Another suggestion was that people involved in such important funds should not comment or influence soft fork related discussions. However, Steve Lee via bitcoin-dev responded by saying that there is room for other funds and strategies and anyone is welcome to create alternatives, and Alex Morcos should have no more or less right to participate in discussions than anyone else and his comments should be judged on their merit, just like yours and mine.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T15:10:32.636658+00:00