Jay-Z just upped the stakes again.
According to TechCrunch, the rapper-turned-multi-platform mogul has joined forces with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to fund bitcoin development in countries like India and select countries in Africa. The pair, who have invested 500 BTC in the fund, say they’re doing so in the hopes of making bitcoin “the Internet’s currency.”
Jay-Z and Dorsey, however, are setting up the fund as a “blind irrevocable trust,” which means that both the grantor and beneficiary have no control over or knowledge of the assets in the trust or how they’re being managed. And, because it’s irrevocable, this agreement can’t be modified.
Dorsey also confirmed that ₿trust — which is currently looking to hire three board members — will have no input from either him, or Jay-Z, on how the fund is managed.
The reasons for the duo choosing India and select countries in Africa are completely different. While countries in Africa — especially Nigeria — have seen an uptick in the use of bitcoin on major crypto exchanges ($400 million worth, according to one estimate), India has been completely reluctant to accept bitcoin as a viable currency option.
However, Nigeria — which has the largest volume of bitcoin trading in Africa, and the second-largest (after the United States) volume of bitcoin trading in the world — isn’t the continent’s only country looking to get into the bitcoin game. The Central Bank of Kenya said this week that it will use bitcoin as a reserve currency amid the Kenyan Shilling volatility against the dollar.
