(CU)_Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Friday (Feb 12) announced that he will be teaming up with rap mogul Jay-Z, to create a fund devoted to making bitcoins “the internet’s currency”. Dorsey said in a Tweet that he and Jay-Z are giving 500 bitcoins (worth about $24 million on Friday) to fund the independent endowment called “Btrust”.
The tech tycoon added that the fund, which would initially focus on teams in India and Africa, will be set up as “a blind irrevocable trust”, taking “zero direction”, from either of the investors.
He further noted that three board members are being sought for the initiative, attaching a link to an online application, in which, the mission of the fund was identified as, to “make bitcoin the internet’s currency”.
Over the past year, bitcoin has been on a meteoric rise, especially following online payments giant PayPal’s announcement that it would allow account holders to use cryptocurrency. Moreover, Tesla announced plans to accept the cryptocurrency from customers buying electric vehicles, after the carmaker made a $1.5 billion investment in the digital money this week.
In a major milestone for cryptocurrency, Canada’s main securities regulator on Friday, cleared the launch of the world’s first bitcoin exchange traded fund, Purpose Bitcoin ETF, on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
On Friday, Bitcoin touched a new high of $48,930, after US Bank BNY Mellon, along with MasterCard moved to make it easier for people to use the cryptocurrency on their networks.
Nevertheless, some experts say that the Bitcoin rally may be another case of speculative mania, while regulators have also warned that cryptocurrency is vulnerable to illicit use.