Benzinga | Mar 1, 2021 02:57AM EST

Jack Dorsey, MicroStrategy's Saylor, Winklevoss Twins Give $4M In Initial Funding To MIT's Bitcoin Initiative

An initiative by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aimed at bolstering the security of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has received $4 million in charitable contributions, some of it from business leaders whose companies have made large investments in the apex cryptocurrency.

What Happened: Donors at the Digital Currency Initiative include Square Inc. (NYSE:SQ) and MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR) CEOs Jack Dorsey and Michael Saylor and cryptocurrency investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, as per a statement.

Saylor called Bitcoin "the most important innovation since the advent of the internet," and said it was our responsibility to not only invest in the asset but also its underlying infrastructure that is maintained by open-source developers and nonprofit institutions.

Why It Matters: The 4 million investment represents half of the initiative's fundraising goals, which will be used to hire open source developers and researchers and to "kick off an ecosystem-wide focus on longer-term strategies to harden the underlying protocol."

In late February, Dorsey-led Square purchased an additional 3,318 BTC worth $170 million after earlier buying $50 million worth of the cryptocurrency last October.

Saylor's MicroStrategy now holds an aggregate of 90,531 BTC acquired at an average purchase price of $2.171 billion, as of late February.

Another big holder of Bitcoin is Elon Musk's Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), which purchased $1.5 billion worth of BTC last month.

Price Action: BTC traded 1.77% higher at $46,086.46 at press time.

Related Link: In Bitcoin's Path Back To $50,000, Institutional Investors, Whales Battle Miners