Mike Masnick, the founder of Techdirt, has been appointed to join the board of directors of Bluesky.
The Twitter clone was once accessible by invitation only until it was made public last year.
The authors of the white paper “Protocols, Not Platforms,” which Bluesky executives claim served as inspiration for the Bluesky effort, were identified as Masnick in a statement that was made public.
As per a blog post by the company, Masnick’s appointment to the board is a “natural next step” towards formalising their partnership, as the team was already seeking his counsel.
Masnick, who as of Tuesday afternoon had more than 63,000 followers, was among the platform’s original users.
Newsng understands that under the direction of founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was first developed within Twitter.
Later, it broke away from Twitter to become its own separate business, which Elon Musk relaunched as X.
This includes launching its first paid service to assist users in setting up bespoke domains on the decentralised platform and funding a seed round the previous year.
“His deep understanding of our approach — iterating towards widespread adoption while enabling trust & safety in a decentralized system — makes him an invaluable addition to our board,” the company said in a statement.
Dorsey resigned from Bluesky’s board in May and is now focussing more of his efforts on Nostr, another decentralised network that is well-liked by supporters of Bitcoin like himself.
Masnick’s appointment to the board helps Bluesky, which is currently home to six million users, to maintain its position while it develops its platform, policies, and the AT Protocol, the technology that drives its operations.
We earlier reported that Jack Dorsey’s fintech company, Block, has announced a partnership between its Bitkey hardware wallet and MoonPay, enabling users to buy Bitcoin using various payment methods directly within the Bitkey app.
