Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of The Biteoin Foundation Held: September 16,2015 The following Board of Directors were present: Elizabeth Ploshay Brock Pierce Jim Harper Bobby Lee Olivier Janssens Absent: Micky Malka Staff Present Bruce Fenton-ED Amy Loughran-Dolan-Director of Operations Call to Order and Introductions: Brock Piewe, Chair called the meeting to onlerat 11:05 AM, We will proceed without Micky Malta who is absent. Documents Distributed for the Meeting Agenda received ftom Brock this moming. It should be stated that no board member has any last minute additions. Approval of Minutes: (On motion made by Jim, seconded by Brock , and carried, the board approved the previously distributed minutes of the meeting of the board. Financial Update Bruce says the most important thing is we've cut back quite a bit. Outstanding expenses have mostly been ‘wrapped up. We've saved another $500 orso per month on different technology costs. At this time, we've eut all we can, We're probably at 5-10% of what the previous budget had been, We can't cut more, so the key has to be generating new revenue. Membership/Revenue Drive Brock wants to know if we have suggestions on how to generate revenue, He probably worked the most closely with Patrick on corporate sponsors, membership ete, Brock made several calls asking for corporate members to upgrade their membership category. He is willing to do that again, providing that we are moving forward with projects as a foundation, We nced to show people what we're doing. We're here to be a platform to facilitate conversations amongst constituents. This is an important role we should be willing to play.Bruce agrees, is plan before his car accident was to repair things broken with the foundation, then move on to work on our mission, memberships.sponsorships, etc. He thinks we're close to formulating a good mission, Bruce’s ‘thoughts re: the mission of the Foundation are in line with what Brock has said, An example is DevCore, which is a good workshop for usto lead. It's not controversial, and people like it. Bruce believes that there is a desperate need for more communication within the space... The Scalingbitcoin event was a good concept. We can take the need for increased communication in this space and ran with it, and expand on it more. One idea is a technology development committee of some sort. He's talked to some very serious people in the space, some high profile developers, and he thinks there is areal n ed forit, Some of the very best names in the space have shown interest ‘We may be able to get a high profile chairto run the committee, and it would attract serious developers. The goals would be to have the committee communicate to the community what is going on with development, Jim is uncertain of what the community most needs, Jim questions whether a govemance process is helpful or needed. Given our credibility problems asa foundation, are we the proper people to do it? Jim would be interested in further discussing the technology development committee and wonders of Bruce could share the names ofthe interested parties Bruce explains as things are not finalized, we will not be disclosing names a this ime, but he wil share them With the born), II The great thing about Mis that he’s not aitiated with a company, he’s not based, Ilim putting his name on something would bring a lot of developers toi. He wauld be a huge draw and it would give us quite abit of eredibliy with all ofour audience, There's a need for both communication and govemance. Given with the way the space is, he believes we should stay away fiom the oveming piece. Itmay just annoy people at this time, ‘There’ little downside with us doing something communication driven, Jim wonders if there could be an effort to help with information. One suggestion would be upgrading biteoin.org. so there is more info fornewbies. We could try to curaate good community participation, Creating a set of principles and trying to apply those principles to a certain platform, We could encourage people to not participate ‘on certain platforms where bad behavior is commonplace, Reddit has good things, but reddit has a lot of bad things. Bruce looked at making a clone of reddit on the forums. It was too difficult. Our forums do not have a lot of heavy tual, He would like to offer three ways for people to join the forums. 1) Ifthey are a member 2)ifthey verify their identity through FB 3)by paying @ nominal fee. People could remain anonymous in their posts, but this avoids the ability for people to just sot up new account to cause trouble. Bitcoin Foundation Speakers Bureau: We get a lot of inquiries for Speakers so Bruce thought it would bea win-win if we could make speaker inquities more accessible. Everyone on the call is welcome to join, Ideally Bruce doesn't want any speaking requests to ‘occur without someone from the Foundation in attendance. That lets speaking organizers know that someone from the Foundation will always be willing and able to attend. Bruce said it shows that the prominent people in the space are interested in the foundation. Speakers Bureau members include Elizabeth McCauley, Roger Ver, Matt Roszak, Erik Voothecs, Nick Sullivan, Brock Pierce, Connie Gallippi, Vinny Lingham, Jeffrey Tucker, Nick Spanos, Paul Snow, Jeff Garzik, and Nic Cary. Jim would like to be added to the Speakers Bureau. DevCore Update:Bruce says we have Gavin and Jeff Garzik confirmed. The space is Draper University. Ifanyone has su oon sponsors that would be great, we don’t want to lose money this time around, Bobby asks what is the sponsorship amount for Devore. Bruce says $5,000. We could be flexible. At the last DevCore, sponsorships went up to $25,000. That was a different economy. Brock wants to know ifwe've done anything to promote the event, We are capped at 200 tickets, What are we forecasting in terms of profits, and where are we on the ticket sales process. Bruce says we need to do more with promotion. We've posted it on social media Brock says we should be trying to get our membership emsil up and running in order to promote this event. Bruce agroes and says that we will sond something out to all ofthe mombers mentioning the event and sponsorship, Brock says ifwe circulate the email tothe board, they can weigh in, Does Bruce have a revenue expectation? Bruce says we have kept overhead low and that the total casts will be around 6K, it should be unlikely lose money Brock said the lat events we had asa 25K sponsor..were things just more expensive than now? Bruce says yes, Bruce indicated the foundation is paying srs IES. hoy ae cheap flights because they are within the US. Does Bruce want to talk about plans for next events? Brock says it’s good to promote the next event during an event, Bruce discussed the success of Scalingbitcoin, which we were a sponsor of, Our conferences would be competing with this type of style conference... Bruce thinks that we should lean away from conferences for now. He thinks we should push the Annual Meeting back until next year, It doesn’t make sense to do it new. We do have Harvard, but there are problems with the room, ete. We should de-prioritize the annual meeting , our priority should be defining what we do as a foundation, what is our value? We can see how DevCore goes and piggyback on the success of mectings like Scalingbitcoin, and sponsoring or cooperating with future such events. Brock discussed the Coinsensus Conference, which was put on by Coindesk. They generated over mil dollars, it was done by Coindesk. Bruce said he could possibly talk to coindesk about partnering, Board seat We want to get the process out and announced and get it communicated to the media, Brock will reach out to some people who have run historically, to sec ifthey are interested Elizabeth has been waiting to sec ifthete any candidates before she drafts a press release.. Ifshe is given the go ahead she will draft an announcement, We are currently behind on the schedule we drafted as a board Brock says we are all under agreement. Is everyone comfortable with the go ahead?Bruce has sent emails to Jeremy Gardner, Vinny Lingham and people who have nun in last elections. Ifother board members could reach out to potential candidates, that would be help Elizabeth: It's important to note thatthe first election isthe afiliate seat Brock: Weneed tobe able to clearly state who is eligible forthe affiliate seat. Elizabeth: What are we doing with the seat, what are we doing withthe intl chapters? Brock: We can let that affiliate Board seat work on that, We don't have to have all ofthe answer. Elizabeth: Are the people eligible only the existing affiliate chapter members? Or can anyone run? It's important to have this clatification ‘Bruce has interpreted the by-laws to allow for anyone to run but says the by-laws are not straightforward, he needs to review them more, He believes the board may be able to appoint the first person, Brock says that ifwe have someone extraordinary to bring onboard, he would like to further engage that conversation, Jim says he will review the by-laws and see if he can make sense of he affiliate seat. Bruce would like to take a vote on the next call on anything in the by-laws we may want to change, Elizabeth: says that in terms of the affiliate seat election, she is going to hold off until they are certain intempretation of the by-laws. We can make the decision at the October board mecting. Then we run the election forall three seats atthe same time. Does anyone oppose it? We can formulate a press release after the next call. If board members could start pulling together names of potential candidates, that would be helpful All board members are in agreement, Bruce said, who, when, and how we elect is not going to make or break the Foundation, Bobby wonders ifanyone has spoken tol He had him in mind in terms of appointing someone to the affiliate board seat. IIMwould not bea candidate forthe affiliate election, but fora board member at large. Bruce would like to propose a vote to remove the founding members section of the by-laws, because itis no longer relevant. No founding member still has a board scat, He would like to add that as an agenda item for the October Board Meeting Brock agrees with Bruce that we don’t need to promote founding board members in the by-laws. He's not sure what else we ean do beyond that, Jim wonders, is ita concem of anyone that John Matonis is doing a lot of press as a founding board member of the Foundation? He doesn't feel temibly strongly but wonders if other have thoughts? Brock feels that this is factually comet. Bruce says that its erucial that we are careful how we do things, We have have to show we can do things and get resultsJimavants to raise some thinking inspired by a conversation he recently had, Theis likely to be tensions between the interest of comporate members and interests of individual mer, I (2 ¢'sc0ss20 concems with one bitcoin corporation}. He has kept this private because of Foundation impact, but as an individual he would be tempted to ruse the issue publicly. Defending the privacy of Btcoin users was something he figured the foundation was there todo, I'snot something he can arguc when major corporate supporters are onthe other side ofthis issuc, He thinks we should do some thinking on what to do because ofthe large numbers of individual rmemibers. He thinks we can sorve them wel, but we have to leam how, and maintain the comorate support atthe same time, He's not sure one onganization can serve both constituencies. He's nol trying to get a proposal for action, but thinks it should gamer thought, Bruce is anti-regulation. He made a blog post the other day criticizing the Califor bill the other day but then took it down because he didn’t feel like he'd discussed it with the foundation enough. He says the membership is overwhelmingly against regulation, for example, but some of the langer Foundation supporters are pro-regulation, ‘The problem won't go away and the problem of who to represent is difficult one to solve. It is possible that the Foundation could follow the model of the NRA which has a large number of individual and corporate member, Bobby agrees that itis difficult to serve both, but he doesn’t have a suggestion, Is it something we bring to the Public? Orereate a proposal as a board. Elizabeth says we can keep things more dialogue-based, rather than come out on either side. Bruce: Ithelps us go above the fray, a recent example being the blocksize debate. He could put up his post ifhe hhad someone come out on the other side of it. We represent all members, no matter what side they come out on. Elizabeth wants it on record that to her knowledge Bitpay is not looking to formulate another association within the Bitcoin space. Board meeting adjourned by Brock at 12:19 PM