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> It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll.

They aren't. The Digital Currency Inititive (DCI) != MIT. Rather, it's a separate entity that's effectively paying MIT for use of the MIT name and administrative infrastructure; we do not know who is actually funding DCI.

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https://medium.com/mit-media-lab-digital-currency-initiative...

"Together, we’ve raised $900,000. Donors include companies (BitFury, Bitmain, Chain, Circle and Nasdaq) and individuals (Jim Breyer, Jim Pallotta, Jeff Tarrant, Reid Hoffman and Fred Wilson)...while the funds will be limited to support Bitcoin protocol development, the donors do not have any influence over the developers."

Ah good, they finally published part of the list (I was discussing that with them in early march in person at MIT).

That said, I believe that list is incomplete.

Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps the DCI could fund more developers.

https://www.media.mit.edu/research/highlights/media-lab-digi...

It's clearly part of MIT's infrastructure. What you're saying is that the money is not coming directly from MIT.

The money is not coming from MIT. (Though, if it were, I would expect the next complaint would be about the military funding it. :) )

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