Litecoin’s Founder and Executive director of the Non Profit, Litecoin Foundation, has reaffirmed his commitment to the project following recent concerns around the organisations finances and spending in a conversation with CoinDesk.

“The goal, of course, is to get Litecoin Foundation to be self-sustaining from donations, partnerships and merchandise sales,” — “Until we get to that point, I have and will continue to support the Litecoin Foundation financially as necessary.” — Charlie Lee

Lee told Coindesk that this was not a unique issue to the Foundation, as the 2018 bear market period hurt many projects in the space. Investigating the organisation’s public financial reports, Lee’s donations accounted for roughly 80% of all funding since inception in 2017. Notably a large donation valued at $468,000 worth of Litecoin was given back in December 2017.

Fellow director Xinxi Wang expanded on the situation in an interview with Chinese news site Xcong stating:

“I don’t think there is a correlation between donations and enthusiasm,” “First, we did not actively solicit donations from the community in Q1. Second, the price of Litecoin was low, so the same amount of Litecoin donations were worth less than before. In Q2, we received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations.”

The Foundation has been criticised for its heavy focus on marketing and partnerships with sports teams and personalities such as the UFC, Miami Dolphins, Nascar driver Landon Cassill and Football player CJ Sapong, all of whom will have some presence at the upcoming Litecoin summit in October this year. The move was made in the hope that it would help drive adoption and real world usage of Litecoin by getting the name out there, although some question whether the costs of multiple six figures were worth it or whether the money would have been better allocated elsewhere.

In response Lee recognised the concerns especially when it was revealed not much progress had been made on the development front, saying in a series of tweets:

“As the year went by, I got sidetracked with a ton of other things that needed my attention. These included Litecoin Foundation’s work on adoption and awareness: Mammoth Film Festival, Glory Kickboxing, Feel the Kpop concert, Flexa SPEDN support, the Miami Dolphins, and more!” “Litecoin Foundation’s purpose is 2-fold: work on Litecoin adoption and work on development for Litecoin. For the past months, I believed adoption and awareness was a more important focus for me than development. But I do agree that both are just as important in the long run.” “I dropped the ball on MW/CT. For that, I apologize. But it’s not fair at all to say that I strung people along and tricked them. Except for the initial tweet, I haven’t said 2019. When asked, I have only said things are moving slowly and will give an update when there is one.” “That said, I believe it’s time now for me to shift focus from adoption back to development. I still think fungibility is extremely important and I will get the ball rolling on MW/CT again. This time, I won’t make any promises on dates.”

Disclaimer — Written by Franklyn Richards, Director of the Litecoin Foundation.