Over 10 members resigned from the Bitcoin Foundation over the recent election of Bitcoin entrepreneur Brock Pierce as its board director.
By Polina Chernykh
Updated
3 mins read
According to the officials of the Bitcoin Foundation, the organization has lost more than 10 members following the recent election of Brock Pierce as its board director.
Pierce has recently angered bitcoin enthusiasts after his involvement in KnCMiner, a firm that provided broken computers to bitcoin miners. Still, Pierce says his relation to KnCMiner is limited and the company plans to compensate its customers.
Brock Pierce, one time Disney child star and current Bitcoin entrepreneur, has been sued for sexual abuse and fraud. His past involved allegations in lawsuits from the employees of his first company Digital Entertainment Network, that he pressured them for sex and offered drugs.
However, Pierce denied all the accusations. “Completely false,” he said. “My view is that these people are only trying to get money.”
Pierce election provoked anxiety in the world of digital currencies. One of the Bitcoin Foundation members, Patrick Alexander, says: “This is not the direction this foundation needs to take. The foundation members need to emulate very high moral values and ethics in business and in personal dealings, especially as it involves money.”
He continued: “So far, the track record of prominent Bitcoin Foundation members has been abysmal. I know that most foundation members are probably swell people and are not like this.
However, the acts of a few have overshadowed us all unfortunately. I no longer want to be associated with these people.”
Complaints from other foundation members will increase in the future. Another member stated: “The board has made repeated hollow promises about transparency.
“It’s been a year, and the only transparency the foundation has created has been the illusion of transparency at the expense of the forum using members by turning their private communications public overnight and zero transparency on the board itself.”
“There are no financials. There are no minutes. There is no record of how board members are voting — and which ones are even participating.”
Patrick Murck, a Bitcoin Foundation General Counsel, said his group with over 1,500 members would bounce back from the recent negative events.
“Democracy is messy sometimes,” he said. “If in the future members decide they want to have a vetting process, that’s great.”
Not all of the Bitcoin Foundation members knew about the Pierce’s troubled past until the elections.
Pierce was voted to fill one of two positions vacated by Mark Karpeles, chief executive of the bankrupt Mt.Gox, and Charlie Shrem, who was charged for laundering money.
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Polina is an undergraduate student at Belarusian State Economic University (BSEU) where she is studying at the faculty of International Business Communication for a degree specializing in Intercultural Communication. In her spare time she enjoys drawing, music and travelling.
