Incidentally, David Brin (who has written a story involving a black hole endangering the earth -- among other excellent books) is on several of their advisory boards. He's also a Ph.D astrophysicist and general all-around nice guy. Here's his blog.
It is somewhat strange to me that LF is apparently the only (?) major futurist charity with a sizable stake in bitcoin at the moment. (About 200BTC, with an additional 500 pledged as matching donations.) More charities with their own cache of bitcoin set aside for long-term purposes would be a great thing for the economy and society in the long run, IMHO.
Check out this quote from their site:
Quote
We would like to start a trend of nonprofits building endowment funds with bitcoins instead of just spending them all. Nonprofits could be using the deflationary power of bitcoins to build up their resources so they are in a better position to make a difference in the world. Help us launch this trend!
Zero State, another futurist organization, has a cache of coins but I don't know how big it is. They are a cool bunch, politically moderate yet anti-authoritarian. Maybe they will be able to compete against Lifeboat for the richest group of transhumanists when this is all over...
Also, I would be remiss not to mention the cryonics fund that I put together recently for future purchase of public goods relating to cryonics. (Sorry to be vague, but I haven't honestly decided if it should be research, free cryonics for people who can't afford it, advocacy for better laws, or something else -- maybe a combination.) My rule when I put it together was that they cannot be spent for another year at minimum, and it has to be for public goods for cryonics. The fund was mostly inherited from a prize that I put together that went unclaimed back in 2011... It sure has jumped in value since then.
Onward and upward!
