World’s first bitcoin endowment fund nears one hundred thousand dollars
AbstractWorld’s first bitcoin endowment fund nears one hundred thousand dollars.
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September 21, 2013 — World’s first bitcoin endowment fund nears one hundred thousand dollars.
Thanks to a large pledge of 500 BTC (bitcoins) by Brian Cartmell, Lifeboat Foundation’s bitcoin endowment fund has soared to nearly $100,000. Brian will match the next 500 BTC donated to Lifeboat Foundation.
Once we have matched Brian Cartmell's 500 BTC pledge, the Lifeboat Foundation will be interested in funding cryptography-related projects as a 1984-like world would not only be unpleasant but could give the government the power to do terrible things that could even become existential threats.
While the Lifeboat Foundation was founded in the 21st century, until recently it was mainly funded using 20th century money, basically various types of monies backed by governments. Lifeboat is now working to have the majority of our funding come from 21st century money — money backed not by governments but by algorithms. The 21st century money Lifeboat is currently focused on is bitcoins.
Crypto-currencies have many advantages over old-fashioned government-backed money. For example they enable transparency, enabling Lifeboat to show that our endowment monies are stored in these wallets: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. They also allow people in less developed countries to have access to the rest of the world. For example, PayPal alone blocks access to over 60 countries, and many credit card companies have similar restrictions. Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other financial reasons. Whatever the reason, we don’t think a human being from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the world because of payment issues they can’t control. Our goal is to enable people, not block them.
We would like to start a trend of nonprofits building endowment funds with bitcoins instead of just spending them all. Nonprofits could be using the deflationary power of bitcoins to build up their resources so they are in a better position to make a difference in the world. Help us launch this trend!
Lifeboat Foundation is now partners of Bitcoin Foundation and Bitcoin Magazine. Lifeboat Foundation bitcoin-related board members include Jeff Bone, Vitalik Buterin, Brenton Camac, Philippe Camacho, Brian Cartmell, Stephen DeMeulenaere, Matthew Elias, Chris Haley, Zach Harvey, Dan Ilett, Aaron Lasher, Adam B. Levine, Colbert Low, Jon Matonis, Michael Parsons, Elizabeth Ploshay, Benson Samuel, Charlie Shrem, Eli Sklar, Jorge Timón, Jonathan Waller, Alex Waters, and J.R. Willett.
Also, to give back to the bitcoin community, Lifeboat Foundation has created the first Windows version of oclvanitygen in the world that runs well on high-end AMD cards. (Our version runs nearly four times as fast as the old version!) You can download it for free and can learn more about what we did on GitHub. oclvanitygen is used to create vanity bitcoin addresses such as our bitcoin address 1Endowment7huUesEXRuWgEXfxHgxvZHfK that begins with 1Lifeboat. PGP signature for program is here.
About Lifeboat Foundation
The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards the Singularity.
Contacts:
Lifeboat Foundation News office
1468 James Rd
Gardnerville, NV 89460, USA
+1 (512) 548-6425
[email protected]
