Minutes of The Bitcoin Foundation Board Meeting held on November 20, 2018
Present:
Bobby Lee
Brock Pierce (Chairman)
Bruce Fenton
Llew Claasen (Executive Director)
Michael Perklin
Vinny Lingham
Absent:
none
Approval of the agenda
The agenda for the meeting was approved by the Board.
Approval of the minutes
The minutes of the meeting held on October 16, 2018, were approved by all present.
Financial update – October 2018
- October revenue includes Membership contributions of $728. There were 6 new members.
- Operating expenses for the period were $6,250 which is well within the average monthly expenditure. This expense was before a loss in BTC value of $164 and a loss in ETH value of $5,638
- The net deficit for the period was $11,313
- 10/31/18 Bitcoin Balance was 0.5973 coins equating to $3,787
- 10/31/18 ETH Balance was 158.9459 Ether equating to $31,373
- October BPI high was $6,622 with a low of $6,177
- Total Cash assets including BTC, ETH, and USD were $36,821 at 10/31/18, a 16{520ebc7d04367f10067c097a94259816cd1e6df76ec40212834858ca2e1af940} decrease in cash assets for the period.
Operational update – September 2018
French BitLicense
The ED and legal counsel met with the blockchain team at the French Finance ministry to discuss our opposition to the so-called French BitLicense. The meeting went well, but the team indicated a strong desire for “proportionate and flexible regulatory requirement, adapted to the specificities of ICOs and crypto-assets.” and that this was supported by earlier public participation.
Counsel to the Foundation reached out to French legislators in the upper house where bill still needs to be adopted, to determine if it was worth building a coalition to oppose the bill. The parliamentarians indicated that regulation was guaranteed and AML requirements were imposed by the EU directive. Outreach to counsel at Ledger in France also indicated an unwillingness to publicly oppose the regulations.
The Foundation decided not to further oppose the passing of the bill, but rather to get involved in the drafting of the final regulations. Llew met with Thibault Verbiest, a French lawyer that was involved in creating the first draft of the PACT-E bill amendment. Thibault offered to include the Foundation as an advisor to the drafting of the regulations currently in progress and follow-on calls are being scheduled. Thibault also offered to include the ED in a high-level cryptoasset regulation working group meeting at the WEF at the end of Jan 2019 in Davos, Switzerland.
NY BitLicense
Foundation member Theo Chino’s s78 application for the NY BitLicense regulations to be set aside was unsuccessful. He has filed an appeal and asked the Foundation to file a supporting amicus brief. The ED asked his investment company law firm, Brown Rudnick in NYC, to do the work on a pro-bono basis and they agreed. Once researched, Brown Rudnick advised against filing an amicus brief since Theo’s appeal had a low likelihood of success and the basis of the appeal (standing) didn’t enable the Foundation to use the platform to advance its broader objectives. The Foundation did not file an amicus brief to support Theo’s appeal.
Malta DAO legislation
The ED has been asked to participate on an advisory board for an upcoming piece of legislation in Malta for recognizing DAOs as legal persons. Follow-on discussions are being scheduled by Dr. Jonathan Galea.
Change in legal counsel
The Foundation will terminate the legal services of Pierre Ciric at the end of Nov 2018 and switch to pro-bono representation by Brown Rudnick. The next matter that Brown Rudnick will assist with, is updating the Foundation bylaws. Each matter will need to be individually approved by the pro-bono committee at this time.
Participation in University of Nicosia curriculum
George Giaglis, a professor at UNIC and the Director of their Institute for the Future has asked the Foundation to participate in the curriculum for their cryptocurrency and blockchain programs. Follow-on discussions are being scheduled. They were the first university in the world to offer an MSc in Digital Currency.
New board appointments
Vinny and Llew have reached out to the top 3 shortlist candidates separately, but no follow-on calls have yet been confirmed.
Speaking engagements
End October and November speaking engagements and conferences:
- BlockCon2018 (October 10-12) Santa Monica, CA
- Decentralized (November 14-16), Athens, Greece
- Blockshow Asia (November 28-29) Singapore
Other matters
Bitcoin Cash
Bobby initiated a discussion asking whether the Foundation should have a public opinion on Bitcoin Cash and the BSV fork. Was this an opportunity for the Foundation to do some thought leadership? The board members agreed that the issue was very contentious and that there were problems on both the BCH and BCH/ABC sides. No public position necessary at this time.
Bitcoin’s 10 year birthday
Brock initiated a discussion about January 3, 2019, the 10-year anniversary of the Bitcoin genesis block. The board discussed a number of different options, including possibly sponsoring an event, making an announcement or working with another event taking place at the same time.
A decision was taken that the format of the celebrations should be good speakers for 45-60 minutes over a videocast, with pre-parties at participating meetup groups. Brock agreed to organize a party in Puerto Rico, while Bruce agreed to organize something in New Hampshire and Michael offered to organize meetups groups in Toronto and Denver. Llew would suggest a list of speakers for the board to agree on and work with board members to reach out to prospective speakers to confirm their participation.
There being no further items to discuss, the meeting was adjourned.
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11.20.18 Minutes of Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of The Bitcoin Foundation
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