Bitcoin Foundation faces difficulty raising funds, two board members quit

Bitcoin Foundation board members Jim Harper and Olivier Janssens have resigned and have been removed from the organization after disagreeing with the foundation’s future direction.

     At a meeting at 11am EST today, Bitcoin Foundation board members took a vote on the long-standing question of whether the organization should dissolve. Harper and Janssens voted in favor of shutting down the foundation.

     In a statement, Bitcoin Foundation vice chairman and BTCC CEO Bobby Lee said the organization accepted Jim Harper’s resignation following the vote, and Harper himself confirmed the decision to CoinDesk, saying it was “not an impulsive decision.”

     More controversially, Lee called a vote to remove controversial board member Oliver Janssens from the organization as well. Foundation president Brock Pierce and remaining board members Elizabeth McCauley and Micky “Meyer” Malka voted in favor of the resolution.

     In a public statement, Janssens said he hopes the foundation can continue to exist, but the foundation needs to have a plan and direction for the future, like the goals Harper mentioned.

     "They wanted everyone to start raising money so they could come up with a plan," Janssens wrote in a Reddit post. "I said I couldn't raise money for the foundation until we had a plan."

     The dismissal of board members, coupled with the minutes of the October 20 board meeting, show that the Bitcoin Foundation has funding only until March of next year, and that recent conference activities have also brought in very little revenue.

     According to the meeting minutes, the board discussed how to raise funds to continue operating the foundation, and asked board members to raise money from the community as part of their work. In an interview with coindesk, Bruce Fenton, director of the Bitcoin Foundation, spoke highly of the two resigned board members, but also said that he felt that the organization would have better people to replace them and move towards success with the organization. "It is crucial that the vision of the board of directors is consistent. When there are differences of opinion, if the vision is still ideal, this vision will eventually enable the board of directors to reach a consensus and put the foundation in a more stable position."

     In a statement, Pierce said he unreservedly supports Lee's approach to the incident. Malka and Ploshay were not immediately available for comment.

Boiling water

     Janssens has found himself frequently involved in spats with other prominent figures at the foundation, and has a history of speaking out, once speaking to the bitcoin community about the foundation’s financial problems without the support of other board members.

     “I have been a thorn in the foundation’s side since the beginning, and they are just waiting for the right time to get rid of me. The fact is that the foundation is too sick to save. For the sake of reputation and self-esteem, they will try to keep the foundation running, but they have already lost the support of the Bitcoin community,” he wrote.

     Through social media, Janssens hopes to rally support for his cause, including from Peter Vessenes, former chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation and founder of the organization. He believes that closing the foundation is best for all those who have donated to its cause.

     He wrote: "Oliver, I vote for you in the hope that more people will pay attention to this matter. We should close the foundation and return the donations in proportion to the donations; the remaining active people on the board are those who are unwilling to do so."

     Harper, who has long served as global policy advisor to the Bitcoin Foundation, expressed his views in an interview with CoinDesk, firmly believing that the Bitcoin Foundation “lacks vision,” although this is not the fault of the foundation’s new chairman Brock Pierce or its directors.

     “The foundation has no organizational purpose so far. I think it has a chaotic organizational structure and, in hindsight, it is very unstable. This situation has not improved,” he said. “However, I think the Bitcoin community still needs a good lobbying organization to serve Bitcoin users.”

The road ahead

     While those involved in this incident are on the same page, it is unclear what the Bitcoin Foundation will do next.

     For now, the foundation will continue to operate without all seven board members, except for Janssens and Harper, whose positions were previously reserved for founders and then transferred to international branch representatives, which remain vacant.

     Lee said the foundation will immediately begin some of the activities it has been doing, such as the DevCore conference, the most recent of which was held in October at Draper University, an entrepreneurial university in California.

     “In recent months, the Executive Director has reduced the budget to a minimum, and our foundation has still been able to add value to the ecosystem through projects like DevCore and building engagement with media and public figures,” Lee wrote.

In addition to considering the foundation's future, Malka and McCauley will reach the end of their two-year terms on December 31.

     Fenton said the board is still "reviewing the election process" and may consider filling the open position "in whole or in part" to the right person.