MIT announced today it has raised $900,000 to fund the work of three bitcoin developers.
The Bitcoin Developer Fund, backed by venture capitalist Fred Wilson, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and others is intended to give the three bitcoin coders working to resolve the block-size debate and other similar technical challenges an academic platform from which to work.
MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) director Brian Forde said the university’s role in helping support these coders is just part of the academic community’s responsibility to create a place where bitcoin’s developers can continue their work.
Forde told CoinDesk: "We built out the fund to be able to support people like Wlad [van der Laan], Cory [Fields] and Gavin [Andresen] who have supported bitcoin to continue their work in an academic way." Beginning in April 2015, the developers have been working with the MIT DCI in a full-time capacity. MIT’s Media Lab created the Digital Currency Initiative, also in Apirl 2015, to foster an academic exploration of the blockchain.
Corporate donors to the fund included BitFury, Bitmain, Chain, Circle and Nasdaq, along with venture capitalists Jim Breyer, Jim Pallotta, Jeff Tarrant and Fred Wilson. LinkedIn co-founder, Reid Hoffman, who is also a co-founder of PayPal and a member of the so-called PayPal mafia, also participated.
The money was given as what Forde called "unrestricted gifts", a decision intended to prevent the donors from obtaining any influence over the developers. In regards to the Bitcoin Core versus Bitcoin Classic debate over how to scale the network, MIT says it has no official position. An Academic Platform
In spite of MIT maintaining a neutral position, the bitcoin scaling debate certainly plays a role in the Boston-based university’s decision to help raise the fund.
The network’s developers, including those with the ability to implement changes decided upon by members of the […]
