Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey and rapper Jay Z have initially created an endowment to fund bitcoin development in Africa and India, Dorsey said Friday. The duo puts 500 bitcoin, which are currently worth $23.6 million, in the endowment called ₿trust. The fund’s mission is to “make bitcoin the internet’s currency,” a job application describes. Dorsey said the fund would be set up as a blind irrevocable trust, adding that the duo won’t give the team any direction. ₿trust is looking to hire three board members.”‘”
The government in India has so far been reluctant to embrace Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Friday’s move comes as New Delhi is inching closer to introducing a law that would ban private cryptocurrencies nationwide. It is also looking to create its digital currency. Even though India is the software development capital of the world, we haven’t contributed to bitcoin core development in any significant way,” explained Varun Deshpande, co-founder of Juno, which is building a digital banking platform from India for Asian Americans, to TechCrunch.
“India always had the skills to contribute but lacked the right incentives. Today’s initiative is even more significant since it provides the right incentives for developers from the world’s largest democracy to contribute and have a say in bitcoin’s protocol development and bring a diversity of thoughts in shaping the future of money.
The irony is as India prepares a bill to ban Bitcoin in India, the world is turning to our massive technical talent in India to secure and safeguard the Bitcoin network. On the other hand, Africa, most especially Nigeria, has experienced a surge in cryptocurrency transactions in recent years. Last year, Nigerians traded more than $500 million of cryptocurrency on major local crypto exchanges. The country is only second to the US regarding the volume of bitcoin traded in the last five years. Africans who trade cryptocurrencies rely on them to protect against currency devaluation and value exchange during cross-border transactions.
In Nigeria, bitcoin trading became ubiquitous last year during the #EndSARS protests that rocked the country. When donations for the demonstrations began to flow from all parts of the country and the diaspora, the government shut down the bank accounts for this effort. But bitcoin became a lifeline keeping crowdfunding activities alive.
Since then, there have been growing concerns that the government had intentions to regulate cryptocurrency in the country. Last week, those doubts were actualized as the country’s apex bank gave a directive to banks and financial institutions from dealing in cryptocurrency or facilitating payments for cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
