Innovation: To overcome a peanut allergy, wear a little peanut patch

“I don’t know if the foundation has a future,” says Gavin Andresen, a former board member who now holds the title of chief scientist at the foundation. “The illegal behavior of two of the foundation’s former board members destroyed a lot of trust.” Fenton, the executive director, acknowledges, “There were a lot of bad decisions and a lot of lost money,” but he says his administration wasn’t responsible. (He started in April.)

Harper says the bursting of the bitcoin bubble had led the organization to moderate its ambitions by about the time Shrem admitted guilt. “I hired lobbying in Brussels in 2014, and then we scaled it right back because the money was gone,” he says. The foundation says it’s cut its annual budget by 95 percent in the past two years, to about $100,000. It now focuses on providing technical development and for a while gave up lobbying entirely. The organization “thrived while the bitcoin price was rising, so it never put a plan in place to sustain it,” says Harper.

Not everyone is shying away from bitcoin, which performed well in 2015. IBM, Nasdaq, and the biggest banks are experimenting with the underlying technology, known as blockchain, for use in stock issuances, money transfers, and other transactions. Venture capital firms have invested more than $1 billion in bitcoin-related startups since 2009, according to research from digital currency analyst Coindesk. Trade groups such as the Chamber of Digital Commerce and the year-old Coin Center are picking up some of the Bitcoin Foundation’s lobbying slack. Roger Ver, an angel investor known as Bitcoin Jesus who helped fund the Bitcoin Foundation in the early days, says, “The mission will carry on.”

For now, the Bitcoin Foundation is pressing on, too, trying to restock its coffers—but without some of the dissenters who spoke up on Dec. 15. Harper has agreed to step down, and the other directors have removed Janssens. At the meeting, Director Bobby Lee said, “If someone does not want to be on that ship, they should step off.”

The bottom line The longtime bitcoin lobbying leader, its fortunes closely tied to the currency’s travails, has about $12,000 in assets.

Edited by Jeff Muskus Bloomberg.com