Marta Francesca Belcher is an American technology attorney who has been called a pioneer in the area of

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

law.Forbes, "How Blockchain Will Change Companies: Q&A with Blockchain Expert Marta Belcher" (September 25, 2019)
/ref>Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Staff: Marta Belcher, EFF Special Counsel"
/ref>

Early life and education

Belcher was born in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

and grew up in La Cañada Flintridge, California. Belcher received a B.A. in rhetoric, summa cum laude, from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. During college and law school, she served as the executive director of No Worries Now, a national nonprofit, for which she received numerous awards, including being named Huffington Post's Greatest Person of the Day.Huffington Post, "HuffPost Greatest Person Of The Day: Marta Belcher and 'No Worries Now' Give Teens A Unique Prom" (June 27, 2011)
/ref> At Stanford Law School, Belcher and two other students delivered a crowdsourced commencement speech written using an online

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

.Forbes, "8 Stanford Men Vied for Glory. She didn't. Guess who won?" (May 15, 2015)
/ref>

Career

Belcher serves as general counsel of

Protocol Labs The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a protocol, hypermedia and file sharing peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system. IPFS uses content-addressing to uniquely identify each file in a global namespac ...

, chair of the Filecoin Foundation, and special counsel to the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

. She was previously an attorney focusing on blockchain and emerging technologies at Ropes & Gray in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

.Exploring Minds with Michelle Carroll, "Marta Belcher - Blockchain Law & Intellectual Property" (September 16, 2018)
/ref>Bloomberg Law Code & Conduit Podcast, "Talking Blockchain Patents with Ropes & Gray" (August 2018)
/ref> She has spoken about blockchain law around the world, including presenting three times in Davos during the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

,Ropes & Gray, "IP Litigator Speaks on Blockchain Law During the World Economic Forum in Davos" (January 30, 2019)
/ref>Ropes & Gray, "At Davos World Economic Forum, Intellectual Property Litigator Speaks at Cryptocurrency Event" (January 29, 2018)
/ref> testifying before the

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan com ...

,Marta Belcher New York Senate Testimony (June 4, 2019)
/ref>Ropes & Gray, "Attorney Marta Belcher Testifies at New York Senate Hearing on Online Privacy" (June 6, 2019)
/ref> and speaking in

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

, the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

, the

Horasis Horasis is an independent, international think tank, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 2005, by Frank-Jürgen Richter, former director of the World Economic Forum, Horasis is dedicated to the innovation and development of sustainab ...

Global Meeting, Ropes & Gray, “Attorney Marta Belcher Chairs Cryptocurrency Program at Horasis Global Meeting in Portugal” (May 8, 2019)
/ref> and

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

.Ropes & Gray, "Two Ropes & Gray Attorneys Testified on Capitol Hill on Issues Impacting Technology Companies" (July 22, 2019)
/ref> Belcher serves as general counsel for one of the largest cryptocurrency projects, defended one of the first patent litigations against a blockchain company, and was recognized by the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

Innovative Lawyer awards in 2018 for her pioneering work on the first blockchain-transferable software license and in 2019 for her work on the

Permissive License Stack.
Financial Times, "Financial Times Innovative Lawyers 2019" (December 10, 2019) She also represents major blockchain industry groups and civil liberties organizations—including the

and the Blockchain Association—in matters relating to blockchain and public policy.Electronic Frontier Foundation, "SEC’s Action Against Decentralized Exchange Raises Constitutional Questions" (Feb. 12, 2019)
/ref>Electronic Frontier Foundation, "EFF and Open Rights Group Defend the Right to Publish Open Source Software to the U.K. Government" (June 10, 2019)
/ref>Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Why Outlawing Cryptocurrency Purchases Is a Terrible Idea" (June 10, 2019)
/ref> Belcher has also represented public interest organizations in high-profile matters involving technology and civil liberties, including submitting briefs on behalf of the

Center for Democracy and Technology Centre for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the internet for pur ...

Open Technology Institute New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a think tank in the United States founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, educa ...

, National Consumers League, and

Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Indust ...

in the

United States courts of appeals The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals fr ...

and

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

.Cato Institute, "Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org" (Oct. 16, 2019)
/ref>Center for Democracy & Technology, "CDT Joins EFF and NCL in Amicus Brief Defending Cy Pres Awards" (Sept. 2018)
/ref>Ropes & Gray, “Fourth Circuit Extensively Quotes Ropes & Gray Amicus Brief in Important Privacy Ruling” (March 8, 2019)
/ref> Belcher received the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Organization's Web3 Pioneer Award at the United Nations in 2022, celebrating her as a trailblazer and innovator in her field. The prestigious award, also recognized by the US Congress, highlights women entrepreneurs and the meaningful impact they are having on the worldGrace Meng (NY). "WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP DAY 2022". Congressional Record 117: 178 (November 17, 2022). p. E1163. https://www.congress.gov/117/crec/2022/11/17/168/178/CREC-2022-11-17-pt1-PgE1163-4.pdf

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Belcher, Marta California lawyers Stanford Law School alumni Living people 21st-century American women lawyers 21st-century American lawyers Year of birth missing (living people) University of California, Berkeley alumni Ropes & Gray associates