Counterparty Announces Their Non-Profit Foundation

Counterparty, the peer-to-peer financial platform, have been exceptionally busy this month. In a recent press release, 4th October 2014, they revealed their platform is powering over two-thirds of all Bitcoin and alt-coin 2.0 startups and “ICOs” (Initial Coin Offerings). See the full article from Brave New Coin here.

There was an explosive follow up at Inside Bitcoin Las Vegas. Overstock.com and Counterparty had formed a partnership to develop a new cryptocurrency-based stock market, “Medici”. Now Counterparty has announced their intention to create their own foundation. Does Counterparty ever sleep?

“Upon the creation of the foundation, we will be assigning all Counterparty-related intellectual property rights over to it. The board of this foundation will include elected representatives from both the community and the businesses that are rapidly organizing around the platform. This foundations bylaws and management structure will be publicly available for all to inspect, and it will generate revenue through consulting services, as well as an industry partner membership program. As stated earlier, our goal with this is to provide a method for both sustaining the technology, as well as opening up the high level direction of the platform to additional voices and oversight.”
— – Counterparty

The announcement that they will be forming their own non-profit Counterparty Foundation came from New York on the 21st October. Their intention is to ensure the future growth of the company by continued support of their main goals:

• Ensuring the long-term viability of the protocol
• Preserving their open, community driven ecosystem
• Nurturing the development of their already growing platform

Robby Dermody, founder of Counterparty, advises in a press release that their choice to create the foundation was due to requests for enhanced structure and services, particularly from Counterparty-based businesses.

“Counterparty to this point has been funded out of our own personal savings, many of these businesses are willing to contribute funds that would allow for the long term sustainability of the project, along with a more democratic and inclusive process moving forward.”
— – Dermody

They will not be creating this alone. The respected Law firm Perkins Coie, a leader in cryptocurrency , will be assisting in the formation of the foundation.

“Perkins Coie provides regulatory investigations and compliance counseling, litigation support, consumer protection counseling, and business transaction assistance, regarding a range of bitcoin and digital currency systems, services and products. Our clients include virtual currency exchanges, payment processors, investors, and industry associations.” – Perkins Coie

That’s not all, Counterparty are now hiring for developers and other positions. At the time of writing this article they are looking for a Development Team Lead to head up the Counterparty development team on a day to day basis. For more information and to keep an eye on future roles visit the Counterparty website here: http://counterparty.io/jobs/

B.Holmes, author of The Range of Illusion and The Private Key instalments, is currently located in Thailand, researching and writing about crypto. You can follow B.Holmes on twitter @BanteringB, or contact via email: [email protected]