Bitcoin Foundation: Where on Earth Did all the Money Go?

[BruceFenton]

EDIT:  Not sure why it would be unclear but these are 2014 expenses incurred by people no longer with the foundation.


This week Charles Hoskinson posted a thoughtful post on the Bitcoin Foundation and his idea that an audit would help the organization break from the past.

I'm happy to support an audit provided someone can lead it and do the work involved and/ or support the costs of one.

I do remain skeptical of the value of an audit.  We all know that a lot of money was wasted and lost - I detail the basics of the 2014 spending below -- it is unlikely worse than imagined as all the funds are essentially gone.  I don't think much can be done about past mistakes, the people involved are no longer with the organization.

Also this week, someone on an anti-Bitcoin sub posted this data from the 990 forms and was afraid it would be censored if posted on r/Bitcoin.

I'm happy to post it for them, minus the color commentary and a couple of minor factual inaccuracies.

They also implied that some people would want to not have this information brought to light.  I'm more than glad to.  I don't defend these financial decisions as I had nothing to do with them.  I also had thought the 2014 990 form with this was posted once completed this summer.  At that time we were going through a website and server change and I was also recovering from a car accident, so if it was posted it wasn't in the proper place.  For not having the 990 form posted in the correct section a few months back , that's on me and I'm sorry.  

The bigger matter is the financials themselves.

I don't defend these financials, I certainly don't apologize for them or attempt to justify them.  I had nothing whatsoever to do with these decisions.

As you can see the spending / loss was caused by:

1) a large drop in Bitcoin value costing millions of dollars - the peak foundation assets were calculated based on a Bitcoin price in the $800 range -- so, had they simply held those coins it would have seen the $6-7 million fall to $2 million or so

2) ridiculously wasteful and reckless spending

3) reasonable and legitimate expenses such as Gavin and dev salaries

I have not been presented any evidence of any theft, criminal act or similar wrongdoing but would be *happy to pay a bounty of at least 10%* for anyone with information and evidence of any such act leading to recovery of any funds which were misappropriated or stolen.  Those who imply that there is any wrongdoing at the foundation now or by those involved now should come forward with evidence or at least a solid and specific accusation.  If presented with any such evidence I would work to have justice done.

It seems strange that so many make an effort to tie those involved now to the sins of the past.

This is the point of a turnaround;  to take what an organization has and make it as useful as possible.   Many people think that the change in management and new focus, combined with a new mission statement can help the organization to help Bitcoin more.

I wish that the foundation hadn't had so many problems.  I did think it was worthwhile to try to help the organization.


Here are the finances:

Salaries

Gavin Andresen: $147k. Chief Scientist. Salary down from $209k (salary was higher in 2013 as it was pegged to BTCUSD)

Jodie Brady: $141k. COO of the Foundation, who also served as CFO at CoinLab (Peter Vessenes' affiliate company).

Jon Matonis:  $137.5k through "THE HOLE OF ROY LLC". Salary up from $31k. Jon Matonis acted as Executive Director up to October 2014.

Patrick Murck: $115k. Executive Director of the Foundation (as of November 2014). Salary up from $57k.


Contractors:

"LOCAL PRODUCER" was paid $790k to host Bitcoin 2014 in Amsterdam.

Apple Fundraising Consultants were also paid $123k for activities related to the aforementioned conference.

THEPOLICYCOUNCILCOM INC as the Foundation's 'Global Policy Counsel', paid $114k for about 9 months of work in 2014.

And the breakdown of the functional expenses, oh, so many expenses:
Office Expenses: $39k up from $8k in 2013.

Information Technology: $158k up from $67k

Travel: $159k up from $69k

Occupancy: $18k up from $7k.

Accounting: $50.5k up from $9.1k.

Legal fees: $220k up from $161k.


Other: $653k, consisting of:

Professional services: $307k

Public relations: $93k

Executive Directory Compensation: $137.5k

Professional event expenses: $115k

Other salaries and wages: $471k up from $72k


Revenues :
Membership dues: $335k down from $358k
Conference revenue: $584k up from $337k
At the end of 2014 not much was left: $366k.


2015

The beginning of 2015 still had many expenses similar to the above.  At the time I came aboard those costs reduced dramatically.  There were still high outstanding legal and accounting bills as well as the bitnodes funding and Bitcoin.org funding and other previous obligations that were paid.

Current spending is in the $8k / mo range

Current expenses:

Board salaries: $0

Executive Director salary: $0

All reimbursements for travel:  in the range of $3000 - primarily for three speakers airfare and hotel (me, Gavin and Andreas) to DevCore, $600 in pizza for the attendees etc.

Aside from one economy flight to DevCore and the hotel I have personally not been reimbursed for any travel.  I have paid some costs from my own credit card for web hosting etc which were also reimbursed - this is also a small amount, perhaps in the $2000 range

Current salaries include one part time bookkeeper and one almost full time ops director.

I'd love any feedback about what the organization can do to break from the past.  We could close, sure.  I'm not convinced that is what's best for Bitcoin and 8/10 top voted candidates from the last four elections don't think that's what the members want.  What else can an organization do to move forward?

[Gleb Gamow]

Thank you, Bruce, for starting this thread. For some odd reason I'm shadowban on Reddit... and I was playin' nice according to the posts I've penned leading up to the time I was shadowban months ago. Still scratchin' my head on that one.

Ironically, I came here to hunt Charles' thread (refraining from startin' a new one) to get on your ass about something you penned (EDIT: Holy Fuck! What I had in mind in saying was already said, then some. WOW!), but I'll hold off since, again, you were kind enough to start this thread. I'll read more instead to get a better lay of the land.

[Gleb Gamow]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3zbswe/bitcoin_foundation_where_did_all_the_money_go/cyl4lgb

I also said I'd open the records.

Ironically, I was kicked in the balls when requesting one simple bitcoin traction, that been the one where KnC paid $100K UDS in bitcoin to become a platinum member prior to an infamous election. I started and maintain a thread pertaining to such where to date I believe all the crickets are now dead parrots.

[Amph]

what the sense of a bitcoin foundation, on the first place, when it is supposed for bitcoin to be decentralized?

average joe can find all the info they need on bitcoin.org as i see it, that is the foundation already

we don't certainly need a bunch of greedy dude, that work as a central hub

[Gleb Gamow]

I'm not sure why the above is relevant, for it's not like Peter Vessenes was one of the original founders of The Bitcoin Foundation or served as Chairman of the Board.

[Gleb Gamow]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3zbswe/bitcoin_foundation_where_did_all_the_money_go/cyl756u

1) I'm a volunteer 2) I was in an extremely bad car accident at the time the 990s came out and had months of recovery 3) the webmaster is also a volunteer 4) at the time the 990 was released we were switching both the servers and the entire website design
I thought they were already posted.
I apologized for them being late.

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/transparency/



The links highlighted are dead (no longer available), with 2014 still not available.

May 1, 2015: http://cointelegraph.com/news/114131/interview-with-the-bitcoin-foundations-bruce-fenton

CT: There has been a lot of controversy regarding the foundation. How do you think you can provide a more transparent foundation to the public?

BF: This week I announced that we aim to be among the very most transparent organizations in the world. For starters we will immediately work to meet all ten of the best practices for transparency listed by the National Council of Nonprofit Organizations and additionally we will do industry specific things like hash financial records on the Blockchain using Factom and continue using Consider-it for member feedback.

[NorrisK]

Looks to me that the foundation could use a financial manager of some sorts. It feels like people without management experience got a lot of money on their hands with no clue how to sensibly spend it.

Wages are way too high, should have increased with increasing earnings. Prove your worth first.

Travel expenses are insane and probably a result of what was posted before about 9000 USD trips. Travel economy class if you are on a budget.

What happened to the conference incomes? The sponsors and registration fees should've covered most if not all of the expenses.

[franky1]

changing the board and mission statement, changes nothing..

instead, everything needs to change.

people would rather see and have the ability to personally decide where every penny goes to, rather than having one vote and then dictators make the decisions per year..

this can easily be achieved by changing to a crowdfunding platform for projects, rather than the political membership donations of the past who then pre-selected a biased set of projects to allow voting on.

by having crowdfunding. there doesnt need to be a treasury/CFO as the members are paying the projects they like directly and not need someone holding the purse-strings.
by having crowdfunding. theres no backlash about vote rigging as there is no central treasury or central voting, instead, people just donate to the project they want and thats it. if you dont like a project then you dont pay and thus not worried about their money is used for something you dont like..

EG instead of hoping TBF legal team would do some lobbying to sort out bitlicence, the legal team make a project proposal, detailing what the will do, how, when, etc. and then all the bitcoin businesses can throw whatever value they like at the project to support the legal costs. while other members who concentrate more on bitcoins protocol can continue donating to the coders project proposal.

its the one thing i found very strange, bitcoin allows for a legitimate voting system where people can vote using their funds for what they want. but TBF went for the central treasury model and biased 'hands up' irregular voting instead.

any new BF platform should just be a resource of business directories, tutorials, project idea's, proposals where everything related to bitcoin can be found, and the mission statement is just 'go forth and prosper'

[Gleb Gamow]

"LOCAL PRODUCER" was paid $790k to host Bitcoin 2014 in Amsterdam.

Apple Fundraising Consultants were also paid $123k for activities related to the aforementioned conference.

https://who.godaddy.com/whoisstd.aspx?domain=applefundraisingconsultants.co.uk&prog_id=GoDaddy&k=OiGAXw7R9S3FgjySw4gHZuCbw2mpn1B0tzfqrmHNlcwCsggHdTajg2MfDj%2f%20PnBNdyjJwIdeyDFf020Hb5Q%2f0Q%3d%3d

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://applefundraisingconsultants.co.uk/

Funny, how a consultant agency was paid to consult for an event a couple months prior to it being formed, with it's website not even indexed prior to 2015. I'm curious as to how this outfit was obtained in the first place.

I may have to ask my bud in the Philippines, Leroy Fodor B.B.A., to calculate for me what 10% of $123K is, hopin' it's over a hundred bucks because I'm gettin' low on eggnog.

EDIT: My bad! Just saw why AFC was chosen: https://www.endole.co.uk/company/08051881/apple-fundraising-consultants-limited



To more than double their net worth. (my math skills are good enough to do double maths, but that there % thingy trips me up every time)

Guess I better make room in the fridge for hopefully a hundred bucks worth of eggnog. Hey, I may even be able to afford a new enema bag if that there 10% bounty equates to enough money. Me so happy!

[Kprawn]

Most of the money should have gone into the salaries of the Bitcoin Core developers in my opinion and not into "administrative" and "management" salaries. They paid a

secretary, some insane salary and justified it by saying she was well worth it. Most people did not want a foundation from the start... Bitcoin does not need a centralized

figure head to represent them. The Core developers must be the crucial piece of this puzzle.. not the management staff. 

[franky1]

"LOCAL PRODUCER" was paid $790k to host Bitcoin 2014 in Amsterdam.

Apple Fundraising Consultants were also paid $123k for activities related to the aforementioned conference.

https://who.godaddy.com/whoisstd.aspx?domain=applefundraisingconsultants.co.uk&prog_id=GoDaddy&k=OiGAXw7R9S3FgjySw4gHZuCbw2mpn1B0tzfqrmHNlcwCsggHdTajg2MfDj%2f%20PnBNdyjJwIdeyDFf020Hb5Q%2f0Q%3d%3d

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://applefundraisingconsultants.co.uk/

what makes me laugh is a british company employed to help with an Amsterdam conference. Amsterdam is home of the red-light district, and the relaxed approach to drugs. so they are literally the experts on putting on an entertaining show

give anyone $100 to spend a day looking for a location and then the venue hire fee, and its done, cheap.

most venues supply the seating, electric, and even technology such as projectors so paying $123k just for 'consulting' seems steep.

im starting to think TBF had to throw money at people just so they had nothing left over at the end of the year to keep their 'non-profit' status. which is the downside of non-profits.. they waste money just to keep their tax exemption status..

if only they had more projects and spread that money more wisely they could still end up with zero balance at the end of the year while also offering more for the community.

and thats why crowfunding projects directly would benefit, as then there is no 'treasury' pot of money to worry about throwing away at the end of the year..

[franky1]

I think only Core developers who really important in Bitcoin Foundation
Bitcoin is decentralized, so i think others than Core developers in Bitcoin Foundation isn't really important.

Also, i think they spend too much money on something not too useful such as Consultation & Travel.

i agree consulting for non development centric stuff is too high, but travel should be given for the prominent names that actually have something to contribute as its not fair to make them pay for travel and hotel just for the benefit of others.
EG pay programmers travel, but not office dwellers with glossy name badges and meaningless titles
but..
the funds should obviously balance out from the income of the conference ticket sales. so it actually ends up not seeming like an extra cost.

EG
if a conference is prebooked, where a deposit is paid.. then people can order tickets, and the funds from the ticket sales covers the extra costs. that way the only real upfront cost from a project proposal is the venue deposit to legitimize the event, to then allow ticket sales to cover the other costs, thus make it self sustainable

[BruceFenton]

Looks to me that the foundation could use a financial manager of some sorts. It feels like people without management experience got a lot of money on their hands with no clue how to sensibly spend it.

Wages are way too high, should have increased with increasing earnings. Prove your worth first.

Travel expenses are insane and probably a result of what was posted before about 9000 USD trips. Travel economy class if you are on a budget.

What happened to the conference incomes? The sponsors and registration fees should've covered most if not all of the expenses.

Not sure why it isn't clear that no one involved in these decisions is with the organization and the current costs, as listed above, are less than 10% of the former costs.

[BruceFenton]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3zbswe/bitcoin_foundation_where_did_all_the_money_go/cyl756u

CT: There has been a lot of controversy regarding the foundation. How do you think you can provide a more transparent foundation to the public?

BF: This week I announced that we aim to be among the very most transparent organizations in the world. For starters we will immediately work to meet all ten of the best practices for transparency listed by the National Council of Nonprofit Organizations and additionally we will do industry specific things like hash financial records on the Blockchain using Factom and continue using Consider-it for member feedback.

The first two links were not dead as of yesterday, I apologized for the third link being late in posting and explained the reason was mostly due to a car accident and web server & site transfer.

I did keep the pledge to be transparent.  All financials and board minutes have been released since I volunteered, there was an error in releasing this one form.  It was not done so in an effort to avoid transparency, I have no motivation to obscure bad decisions I had nothing to do with.

[franky1]

his heart is in the right place, i think we should look to the future and get something new and different started rather then wasting months and thousands of $$ just to get an organised report to show the past.

if they want to do an audit so be it.. but waiting till after the audit to then try something new is just wasting time.. new things can start now while also looking at the past.. there is no reason to wait

in my eyes i pretend TBF never existed before 2016 and something new that actually does something should be created, something everyone can go to be part of and help each other.. no hierachy. no treasury. just something anyone can get involved in and throw idea's or funds at directly, without middlemen

[BruceFenton]

To be clear, I don't think the audit is a great use of time.  I'd much rather focus on things beneficial to Bitcoin.

Here is the proposed mission statement:

https://github.com/BruceFenton/bitcoinfoundationplan

[franky1]

hmm..

The foundation Chief Scientist is Gavin Andresen. The foundation also wishes to create a Technical Communications Committee which will be chaired by someone with significant knowledge about core development. The primary role of this committee will be to bridge the gap between core development and the public and business leaders by updating members of the industry on current events in development and what they mean to the Bitcoin industry.

glorified name badge : smart geeky spokesman

.. much easier to redevelop the site where people can just add announcements and people can edit, highlight or correct should something said be wrong. thus relying on the community as a whole rather than just one person. much like how wiki or github works.

that way for instance. gavin can concentrate on programming. so can gmaxwell, luke jr, etc, etc and all of them can announce something. without there needing to be a chairman sat in an office overseeing them..

im not so loving the whole "board member chairmen of committee stuff".. and would rather see more direct action with those who actually do stuff.. think micro communities rather than committees.

but hey thats just my opinion

[Gyrsur]

LOL, looks like the FIFA of Bitcoin. let them go. they have had their chance.

[Gleb Gamow]

Looks to me that the foundation could use a financial manager of some sorts. It feels like people without management experience got a lot of money on their hands with no clue how to sensibly spend it.

Wages are way too high, should have increased with increasing earnings. Prove your worth first.

Travel expenses are insane and probably a result of what was posted before about 9000 USD trips. Travel economy class if you are on a budget.

What happened to the conference incomes? The sponsors and registration fees should've covered most if not all of the expenses.

Not sure why it isn't clear that no one involved in these decisions is with the organization and the current costs, as listed above, are less than 10% of the former costs.

Excellent point, Bruce. Our bad! Past performances of members no longer at TBF who spent less than 10% of the former costs are not indicative of future performances of future TBF members operating under a new and approved, and again, fully-transparent TBF. I speak for everybody here and say that we won't make that mistake again.

Question: Would you be so kind as to state who over at Reddit mentioned a 10% bounty for uncovering any wrongdoings? His name eludes me at the moment and I don't feel like reading the entire TBF thread over at Reddit again. As a hint as to what the person's name is, taxing my memory I believe he's some sort of volunteer at TBF who doesn't love his position, but doesn't mind using his unpaid position to advance whatever else he's into (a guess on my part, not speaking for the community as a whole in that last assessment).

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

FWIW a lot of us want nothing to do with anything associated with Brock Pierce. But, you know, good luck.