MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative funded by undisclosed gift funds, attracting Bitcoin core developers

From: jeffrey E. [jeevacation@gmail.com] Sent: 4/25/2015 5:06:32 PM To: Joichi Ito Subject: Re: Digital Currency Initiative gavin is clever\ On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 10:57 AM, Joichi Ito {qq wrote: FYI Used gift funds to underwrite this which allowed us to move quickly and win this round. Thanks. - Joi > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Joi Ito > Subject: Digital Currency Initiative > Date: April 25, 2015 at 10:25:09 AM EDT > > As Bitcoin and Digital Currencies have started to become an important trend, the Media Lab has launched an initiative in the space. > >I wrote a blog post on why I think Blockchain/Bitcoin are like the Internet: http://jo1.ito.com/weblog/2015/01/23/why-bitcoin-is-.html = > The way that Bitcoin is organized currently is that there are five core developers and around a hundred contributors to the core code. The five core developers are like Linus Torvalds of Linux. They decide what changes are made to the core code. One of the five is the lead developer, Wladimir, and one is the Chief Scientist, Gavin. > > Gavin, Wladimir and Cory (an important contributing developer) were being paid out of a non-profit organization called the Bitcoin Foundation. A few weeks ago, it “blew up” when one of the board members declared the foundation “bankrupt”. ( https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/1284-the-truth- about-the-bitcoin-foundation/ ) Many organizations scrambled to step into the vacuum created by the foundation and “take control” of the developers. We moved quickly talking to all of the various stakeholders and the three developers decided to join the Media Lab. This is a big win for us. % > According to the WSJ Blog: > > http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/04/24/bitbeat-tackling-bitcoin-price-swings-with-eye-on-emerging- markets/ > >> It’s official, more or less: MIT’s famed Media Lab has become the principal home and funding source for the small team of developers responsible for maintaining and improving bitcoin’s core software. > >> Gavin Andresen, who bears the title of Chief Scientist for the six-person core development team, announced on his blog Wednesday that he and two other core developers, Wladimir van der Laan and Cory Fields, had moved to the MIT Media Lab’s new Digital Currency Initiative, ending their previous status as HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_026360