No Winners as Bitcoin Foundation Election Ends in Runoff

An election to fill two individual member seats at the Bitcoin Foundation has ended without a clear winner, voting results show.

The Bitcoin Foundation reports that none of the 13 candidates received at least 50% of the vote from foundation members, a development that will result in another round of voting.

Participants in the run-off election will include entrepreneur Olivier Janssens, former foundation global policy counsel Jim Harper, Atlantic Financial’s Bruce Fenton and Michael Perklin of the CryptoCurrency Certification Consortium (C4), each of whom received at least 30% of the vote.

Janssens finished first in the poling, capturing 46.7% of the 323 votes, while Harper elicited 41.2% of the voting. Fenton and Perklin finished third and fourth, with 30.9% and 30% of the vote, respectively.

Elsewhere, Gyft CEO Vinny Lingham, who placed third in last year's election, finished with just 17.9% of the vote. Cody Wilson, who ran on a platform to disband the organisation entirely, captured a 21.3% share. Eligible voters were able to vote for more than one candidate.

The election aims to fill the two individual member seats left vacant by outgoing executive director Jon Matonis and chief scientist Gavin Andresen, who will continue to oversee the foundation’s development efforts.

The runoff election will begin on Tuesday, 24th February. Winners will be announced on 28th February via the foundation's blog.

Registration reopened for runoff

Following criticism that the foundation did little to encourage eligible voters to participate in the election, the trade organisation is allowing lifetime members to enroll once more for the runoff.

Candidates, including runoff participants Harper and Fenton, had been the most vocal about the organisation’s push to raise awareness for the event. Of the 1,523 eligible voters, only 13% turned out to vote.

Registration for the second round of voting begins today and will run through 23rd February at 11:59pm EST. This marks the second consecutive election in which the initial voting period has ended in a runoff vote.

Correction: A previous version of this article indicated the foundation had 2,728 eligible voters. This figure has been corrected.

Voting image via Shutterstock