What The Foundation Does

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The Bitcoin Foundation of The Netherlands

The Dutch Bitcoin Foundation promotes the Blockchain revolution from its capital city of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Home to the world’s oldest stock exchange, founded in 1602, Amsterdam has played a role throughout history as a safe harbor for new ideas.

Building on this tradition, the Dutch Bitcoin Foundation was established to promote The Netherlands as the world’s leading country for Blockchain innovation and to increase the impact of this important new technology on Dutch society as well as on the rest of the world.

The Bitcoin Foundation of The Netherlands is an independent nonprofit organization that promotes the Blockchain sector in the Netherlands. Its agenda is determined by regular public polls taken during the monthly Bitcoin and Blockchain Wednesday conference, the country’s largest monthly event dedicated to the Blockchain revolution.

Bitcoin and Blockchain Wednesday

One of the most successful projects of The Bitcoin Foundation is the monthly Bitcoin and Blockchain Wednesday conference, held in Amsterdam every first Wednesday of the month since 2013, and is the largest event of its kind in the country. See Bitcoin Wednesday to register for one of the most interesting monthly tech events in the country.

More information, goals and plans:

  •  The official and public name;
    • Bitcoin Foundation of the Netherlands
  •  The RSIN (Entities and Partnerships Information Number) of the Dutch Bitcoin Foundation of the Netherlands:
    • RSIN = 852722837
  •  Postal address and telephone number of the Foundation;
    • Postal address: Postbus 11103, Singel 250, 1001 GC Amsterdam, Nederland
    • Telephone number: +31 6 284 00112
  •  Goals of the Foundation (from the most recent articles of incorporation)

1. The foundation has the following goals:

a. The promotion, spreading and creation of allround public awareness and knowledge about blockchain-technology and all its use cases,  as well as related technologies, like distributed ledger and digital currencies for the purpose of the common good;

b. And furthermore everything that has a direct or indirect connection with one another or that may be conducive to it, all in the broadest sense.

2. The foundation tries to achieve its goals by:

a. Promoting and supporting of wide-scale academic research, and other research, within this sector, as well as to promote a higher participation of the educational and academic community;

b. Promoting of the Netherlands as international leader within this sector;

c. The offering of information about the broad use cases and social impact of this technology, among other things by making use of different forms of media;

d. The organization of events, lectures, activities and/or meetings.

e. By doing or have all other actions performed, which are related to the foregoing in the broadest sense or which, in the opinion of the board, can be conductive, useful or desirable.

3. The foundation operates on a non-profit basis.

  •  Policyplan
  •  Activities so far:
    • The monthly Bitcoin Wednesday conferences are always on the first Wednesday of the month, which have been organized since 2013, and is now one of the largest and longest running series of events in this sector. In this context, organizing network meetings, debates, workshops, round table discussions, setting up an experimental community where volunteers and other suppliers make full use of bitcoin as a means of exchange.
  •  The money is acquired by means of donations from participants at Bitcoin Wednesday.
  •  The capital is retained as much as possible in Bitcoin and only exchanged to euro on an incidental basis.

The purposes and beneficiaries that are stated in this report are the only ones for this wallet address and the bitcoins contained in them. Other than the specific purposes and payments stated in this report, no other person or organization and no board members have ‐ ever ‐received income from these bitcoins.
The Foundation’s policy in accepting bitcoin donations for Bitcoin Wednesday is to hold the bitcoins in its wallet address for as long as possible without using any payment processor, exchange or any other similar service. When expenses must be paid in a traditional fiat currency, a
designated volunteer from within the community will buy a certain amount of bitcoins from the stichting in exchange for traditional currency
(i.e. euro) at the current BitcoinAverage.com rate. The use of the bitcoins converted into euro have been carefully documented accordingly.
The stichting Bitcoin Nederland aims to conduct regular polls a few times per year during Bitcoin Wednesday which are open to the public and which determine the foundation’s priorities. For the sake of transparency, between 2015 and 2017 these polls have conducted with a simple show of hands and the results are published shortly thereafter on the website of Bitcoin Wednesday.

  •  The use of capital:

The capital belongs entirely to Bitcoin Wednesday, so far the most visible project of the foundation. It is therefore exclusively dedicated to organizing Bitcoin Wednesday with additional administration costs such as web hosting and fees to volunteers and necessary suppliers.

  • Remuneration policy introduction:
    • All contributions and donations to the Foundation and to Bitcoin Wednesday are reserved 100% to the support of our underlying mission.  We therefore encourage such contributions exclusively in Bitcoin.  For the convenience of our community, as of February 2018, the organization has also begun to accept transactions for an expanding number of alternative cryptocurrencies through the Shapeshift payment processor.  Our policy is to keep Bitcoin, handle expenses in Bitcoin and conduct our affairs exclusively through Bitcoin as an alternative and nonfinancial token of barter as much as possible. Only in unusual circumstances and when absolutely necessary can we incidentally ask a member of our community to pay a bill for us in a traditional currency, and do we then compensate that community member in Bitcoin for these expenses. All contributors including management, volunteers and support staff receive Bitcoin honoraria whenever possible.  As of January 2017, less than 15% of the honoraria was paid out in euro, with the rest in Bitcoin.  As of November 2018, more than 99% of the honoraria was in Bitcoin.
  • Remuneration policy (from the most recent articles of incorporation):
    • Article 4.8:
      • The board members do not receive any remuneration for their administrative work and can not enter into an employment contract with the foundation. Professional or professional supplies, activities or services by a board member to or for the benefit of the foundation require the written permission of the board. Only if circumstances permit, board members can receive reimbursement of costs incurred in the performance of their duties and on a non-excessive reimbursement or attendance  fee. The board can only grant a financial compensation to a board member by unanimous vote if a board member has performed more than the usual time and effort on behalf of the foundation.
  •  Board composition and the names of the board member:
    • IT veterans Sachin Kulkarni and Raghavendra Kumar both contribute leadership and knowledge to the board and have had substantial experience working with emerging technologies.
    • Richard Kohl is Secretary. Because of his passion for this technology, Richard started the Bitcoin Wednesday conferences for the community.
    • Yann van Ewijk is Chairman. From his experience in Cyber Security, Yann is dedicated to his passion, Bitcoin.
  •  Overview of activities:

In 2016 we organized 16 events with more than 700 visitors and 60 speakers from more than 30 different countries.

In 2017 we organized 12 events with more than 1000 visitors and 50 speakers from more than 30 different countries.