Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Roc Nation CEO Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter have launched a bitcoin fund aimed at increasing development in India and the entire continent of Africa. The fund will include 500 BTC or approximately $24 million. Carter nor Dorsey will give no direction to the irrevocable trust.
Ultimately, the duo hopes that this fund will encourage increased bitcoin development in the two aforementioned areas. India’s federal government has been apprehensive about getting into the bitcoin business. In fact, government officials have floated legislation that could possibly ban the cryptocurrency altogether.
“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,” OnJuno Co-Founder Varun Deshpande tweeted.
While there is still a need for cryptocurrency development across the continent, Nigeria has rapidly increased bitcoin trading in recent years. Last year, Nigerians traded $400 million worth of cryptocurrency last year. Over the last five years, only America has traded more cryptocurrency than Nigeria.
Moving forward, Carter and Dorsey will look to jumpstart the fund by adding three board members. Dorsey tweeted out a link to an open application on February 12.
JAY-Z/@S_C_ and I are giving 500 BTC to a new endowment named ?trust to fund #Bitcoin development, initially focused on teams in Africa & India. It‘ll be set up as a blind irrevocable trust, taking zero direction from us. We need 3 board members to start: https://t.co/L4mRBryMJe
— jack (@jack) February 12, 2021
