Jack Dorsey is the hero crypto needs right now

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A crypto-loving social media billionaire is wielding influence again, and I’m not talking about Elon Musk. Instead, I’m thinking of Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block and co-founder of Twitter, whom Musk is quickly crushing.

Dorsey has held many roles over the years, including that of a fashion influencer. But his latest is the legal champion of the Bitcoin community. This was exposed this month in a London court where Dorsey is footing the bill for defending Bitcoin developers who are being sued by Craig Wright, who for years has falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

I spoke with Jess Jonas, head of the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, the Dorsey-backed group that assists developers. She explained that Wright claims to have lost Bitcoin and that the developers have a fiduciary duty to him to write code to help him recover his coins, a notion of cockamamie in the first place, but especially since Bitcoin is based on open source software. Despite the absurdity of the claim and Wright’s reputation as a villain and liar, the case has gained ground in the UK High Court and represents what Jonas says is an existential threat to software.

Jonas added that for Bitcoin developers, who are mostly based in the United States, the lawsuit is anxiety-provoking and distracting, and not all of them have the resources to defend themselves in a foreign court. Thus, Dorsey’s defense fund, created to protect Bitcoin from a wide variety of legal perils, has proven invaluable.

Dorsey’s contributions to crypto go well beyond the lawsuit, of course. As CEO of Block, he has made the company a major player in crypto since adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet to help build the Lightning Network, which promises to make the currency viable for everyday payments. Meanwhile, his Bluesky project, an open-source, crypto-enabled social media protocol, is spreading fast to people who are fed up with the toxic realms of Twitter and Facebook.

Compare Dorsey’s activities to Musk’s ruinous reign on Twitter, where the Tesla CEO fostered a culture of chaos and abuse. reinstated. All of this underscores how the crypto community, which desperately needs a good guy to champion its interests, needs to think carefully about who its heroes should be. It’s hard to think of a better one than Dorsey.

Jeff John [email protected]@jeffjohnroberts

DECENTRALIZED NEWS

The Binance CEO has hired white-collar defense attorneys at Latham & Watkin to personally defend him as he and the company face increasing scrutiny. (NYT)

Circle (a sponsor of this newsletter) has found a replacement for Signature Bank, which now relies on a company called Customers Bank to handle fiat-USDC conversions. (Fortune)

Africa has been a hotbed of crypto startups and token buying. But a growing number of users are disenchanted with the prolonged slowdown. (Rest of the world)

Mark Zuckerberg said on an earnings call that Meta is not abandoning its metaverse ambitions for AI, but will instead embrace a combination of the two. (Tech Crunch)

The NFL has launched a Web3 game with studio Mythical Games that allows players to acquire NFTs hosted on the Polkadot blockchain. (Fortune)

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