Dorsey names board members of his bitcoin endowment with Jay-Z

Bitcoin • December 15, 2021, 6:10PM EST

Twitter co-founder and Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced the board members of his bitcoin development endowment in collaboration with Jay-Z today.

The two previously announced their intention to give 500 BTC to set up ₿trust, an endowment to fund bitcoin development with a starting focus on teams based in Africa and India. When he unveiled the plan for a blind trust in February, Dorsey said he needed three board members.

Today, he named four: Carla Kirk-Cohen, Abubakar Nur Khalil, Obi Nwosu and Ojoma Ochai. All four have worked to promote bitcoin development efforts across Africa. Dorsey said a team selected the four developers from a pool of 7,000 applicants.

"They'll now work towards defining the operating principles as they think about how to best distribute the 500 bitcoin towards development efforts," said Dorsey's tweet.

Dorsey has been a long-time supporter of Bitcoin, adding the cryptocurrency to the balance sheet of his payments firm, Block. The firm rebranded from Square earlier this month to signal a broader push into crypto. Block additionally has an ongoing grant program to fund the development of bitcoin technology.

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Aislinn Keely is a reporter on The Block's policy team holding down the legal beat. She covers court decisions, bankruptcies, regulatory actions and other key moments in the legal sphere, putting them in context for the wider crypto industry. Before The Block, she lent her voice to the NPR affiliate WFUV and helmed Fordham University's student newspaper. Send tips or thoughts on all things policy and legal to akeely@theblock.co or follow her on Twitter for updates @AislinnKeely.