The Bitcoin Foundation is currently holding an election to fill the two board seats that were left vacant from the resignations of its industry board members, Charlie Shrem and Mark Karpeles. Voting opened on April 21st and will close shortly.
Charle Shrem is the former CEO of (the now closed) Bitinstant bitcoin exchange. He resigned his role as CEO and Bitcoin Foundation director following what the Bitcoin Foundation described (in January) as “the federal criminal complaint against Charlie Shrem [that] alleges Charlie was involved in operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, conspiring to commit money laundering, and willful failure to file a suspicious activity report”.
Mark Karpeles, the disgraced CEO of Mt. Gox, represented his company on the Bitcoin Foundation’s board. The resignation of Mt. Gox from the board was announced on the foundation’s blog in February: “Effective immediately, Mt. Gox has submitted their resignation from the board of directors. We are grateful for their early and valuable contributions as a founding member in launching the Bitcoin Foundation. MtGox Co. Ltd. (Japan) held one of the three elected industry member seats. Further details, including election procedures, will be forthcoming.”
A subsequent call for nominations of industry candidates to fill the two seats was announced on the Bitcoin Foundation blog, by secretary and board member of the Bitcoin Foundation, Elizabeth Ploshay.
The current board members of the Bitcoin Foundation are:
- Micky Malka, Founder of Ribbit Capital (Industry Seat)
- Gavin Andresen, Chief Scientist (Individual Seat)
- Jon Matonis, Executive Director (Individual Seat)
- Elizabeth Ploshay, Manager of Communications of Bitcoin Magazine (Individual Seat)
- Peter Vessenes, CEO of Coinlab (Founders Seat)
Details of the current board can be found here.
The final list of candidates were announced on the foundation forum:
- Jay Yeom (VP, BitcoinAsia & BitCash)
- Jason M. Tyra, CPA (Principle, Jason M. Tyra, CPA, PLLC)
- Leon Li(CEO, Huobi)
- Frank Schuil (CEO, Safello)
- John McDonnell (CEO, Bitnet Technologies, Ltd.)
- Jon Holmquist (BitcoinBlackFriday)
- Brock Pierce (Chairman & Co-founder, GoCoin)
- Andres Bzurovski (Astropay)
- Clint Ditto (CryptoPros)
- Mohammad Mufti
- Henryk Dabrowski (CEO, Alternet Systems)
- Luke Dashjr (Developer, Bitcoin Core)
- Vinny Lingham (CEO, Gyft)
- Vytautas Karalevičius (CEO, Spectro Coin)
- Bobby Lee (CEO & Co-Founder, BTC China)
All candidates have had to face questions from the foundation community in a dedicated forum section. In addition, this section of the forum has seen debates between the candidates, setting forth their position on technical, legal and infrastructure issues.
