Bitcoin Forum

Who would you like on a Bitcoin Council that represented the whole BTC community and it's spirit?

As we all know "The Bitcoin Foundation" is industry heavy and was created to pay tax free for the development of BTC. Now I think this foundation is fine however I think the name is a bit misleading as it clearly does not represent all of BTC and its ideals.

If there was a group of people that debated and made recommendations to pool operators, miners and industry who would you want to hear from, who would you trust?

Thanks.

I nominate Theymos

Gavin is kind of a given :P

If you want to think of a way to find good people for this: who has the ambition and entrepreneurship like Matthew, AND knows when to shut up and nod, and maybe has some degree of respect for others, and manners, too?

I only have about 200 other things to work on, so I'm down for organizing this.

When do you think this would come into play? Meaning how will we put this to use?

That's because you are one dick eating MF'r.  Just kidding.

I nominate Gornick.

Nanotube should be there since he runs bitcoin-otc

Theymos ,Graet, MrTiggr, slush, Stephen Gornick.

Falkvinge should be invited to sit on the board.

Cascascius and  Death and Taxes.


The  president should be left open for satoshi in perpetuity and maybe Evorhees as the Executive Director.

No council would represent me.

I could see having a Bitcoin Council as a counterweight to the Bitcoin Foundation to compensate for the BF's perceived big-business orientation, and maybe even a Bitcoin Miners' Board. Any weaknesses in the Bitcoin Foundation, such as under-representation of miners, will engender the formation and growth of competing foundations.

If the Bitcoin Foundation does an excellent job in all areas these competitors will gain little traction, but the moment the BF screws up or appears dangerous to a significant number of people (as may have already happened) these competitors will experience a surge in membership and influence.

Let a thousand foundations bloom!

If Bitcoin Counsil ever gets created, I will support it, competition is good. But too often these things end up with good wishes only; hope I'm wrong. I nominate Erik Voorhees!

+1

+21.000.000

This sounds like a great idea.

+1

^^ what you are describing sounds very similar to a forum..  ;D

I second sgornick and Casascius.

Whereas Bitcoin Foundation derives its strengths from raising money in order to provide a development budget (among other noble goals), perhaps the strengths of a more community-focused Bitcoin Council would be those of the crowd --- of the bitcoin userbase en-masse. Perhaps an actual web page to gauge the opinion of the community on particular issues, in order to give a more concrete and visible measure.

So for example, if something controversial happens with the protocol development and an alternate fork is proposed, we could gauge the community's opinion so that a) the Bitcoin Foundation's view is hardly the only one, and b) we have something more press-worthy than a forum poll. This could apply to a wide range of issues, including the attitude towards the Bitcoin Foundation, and events that occur in its lifetime as it unfolds.

I support this idea only to counterbalance "TBF". I nominate Theymos.

Thirding Gornick.

This idea disgusts me.

This is sick.

Now we, the users, can choose between red and blue?

I can predict the next movement: What about a council of ancient and wise users to judge and arbitrate conflicts in the bitcoin world?

 ??? ??? ???

It's not going to work. We just need to keep Bitcoin and its ecosystem the more decentralized and pseudonymous we can.

Monopoly is bad, oligopoly is less bad. It's simple.

LOL.

Yes, please make a senate.  When you find out that your senate can't make anyone do anything that they don't want to do, and neither can the foundation, will all of you stop bitching about the foundation?

Well if all the miners sign up :)

I don't understand why people are so fixated on the governments model of providing a service? Why do you want speak for people who didn't give you their consent to speak for them?


Why can't you just start a for profit service on a voluntary basis. If Bitcoin needs a face, have clients pay for it. If Bitcoin needs vetting businesses, have clients pay for it. If the dev team needs funding, have clients pay for it. And there's no need for a board of directors, or elections, or bylaws or anything like that. You can simply run a business that provides a desirable service for a certain price.


Maybe I get it. Maybe it's harder to get people to pay for something than simply asserting yourself to speak in their name whether they want it or not. Well guess what, harder doesn't make it bad or impossible and easier certainly doesn't make it safe and desirable.

I nominate Atlas! We need someone who doesn't play by the rules, and is always on the edge to help make those tough decisions.

What about MNW, he doesn't play by anyone's rules, even his own!

There should be unions where miners, base users, speculators, exchanges, and developers all set up their own foundations.

Do you mean someone from the community (not from business) in the bitcoin foundation, or a whole new organization?

I nominate no one.  I want an anonymous bitcoin council to be created using multisignature transactions.  It will be sort of like kickstarter, but for the advancement of bitcoin.

Basically a site needs to be set up on Tor where people can look at proposals.  Then, people can vote with their money.  If enough money is there for a project idea then the transaction is executed and the funds delivered to the project.  Note that no one needs to be involved with the distribution of money because it's based on multisignature transactions.  That's the whole point of bitcoin.

Might I recommend we follow Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress? Here's a quote:


IMHO, it's hard to take any sort of "authority" seriously if they do not adopt this model. If the Bitcoin Foundation isn't going to adopt this model, then the Bitcoin Council, should. Two voting bodies, with nary a representative between.

Hold on! What part of "decentralized" do you guys not understand?! You guys are retarded. You cannot run Bitcoin. You cannot control it.

It's centralized now, so we need to create more "centres" to get something as close to decentralization as possible.

I nominate The Real Plato!

A Bitcoin Union makes more sense. Unions are founded in an attempt to keep corporate entities in check.
The Foundation appointed themselves, they were not nominated by the majority, even though they suggest some kind of political structure to their Foundation.
Instead, we got an announcement about an announcement, which is almost laughable.
Is there room for impeachment in the bylaws? If not, there should be. Anything short of total transparency on behalf of the Foundation would be grounds for it, IMHO.
Keeping the majority "out of the loop" breeds distrust. Distrust breeds fear. Fear, when instilled in the majority of a community, breeds a moral-driven will against tyranny. If Bitcoin should ever succeed, trust is essential. I for one doubt that the Foundation can be trusted.

Oh, and who would I appoint to this Union...? Anyone whom the majority of the community believes should be there.
The Bitcoin Foundation "tax" of 2.5 Bitcoins for annual membership seems unreasonable, because they do not reasonably represent the majority.

This is not a bad idea but the only way to make it totally anonymous is to randomly select the members of a committee  Maybe have a random lottery to select the anonymous people like the Greeks use to do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition#Ancient_Athens) (minus the anonymous part).

What would the power be of such a committee?

ADDITIONAL ON POWER:
Maybe the committee could be members of each industry union (consumers, speculators, exchanges, miners, and so forth) and the committee is randomly selected from those members.  The committee could then use dues paid by the trade unions to direct public policy on bitcoin with the rest of the world and solve disputes between unions of the committee.

Anything involving a committee is centralization.  We want a decentralized bitcoin foundation, a P2P Bitcoin Foundation.  Write some P2P software that has rules built in that is capable of allocating money to top voted projects.  Use smart contracts to enforce rules.

Basically this is a P2P Government, and the possibilities are endless.

I nominate Eleuthria (btcguild) & Nachtwind (virtualminer.eu). Also i believe there should be some sort of legal representation within the council just incase things get hairy.

Katz is a no-brainer for legal.

I would further suggest:

Ver: = treasury (track record of due diligence wrt putting funds to work.)
BFL_Sonny: = Pubs (editorial experience with LFC.)
Wagner: = director of recreation.

I officially withdraw my suggestion of Gornick in this org.

If any one wants an invite to the Bitcoin Business Alliance  ( BBA ) PM me.

Its free and theirs only one requirement really, you contribute to the improvement of  bitcoin.

In light of the pandemonium unleashed by the Bitcoin Foundation announcement, aren't you worried that 1) your name makes it sound like you speak for all bitcoin businesses when you clearly do not, and 2) you are excluding individual bitcoin users?

(This is only partly a troll.)

i don't speak for all bitcoin businesses  ???

I'm just saying some of us chat work together at the BBA   :D

seriously tho we are trying to attack the problem of scamming and fraud in bitcoin...

No one. Whoever you nominate no one could live up to the promise. The community is far too diverse for any single entity to cover it all.
What we need is a multitude of different organisations from different backgrounds with different views and interests.
Im happy we already have a couple:

CLAG: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=76216.0
Bitcoin Foundation: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113400.0
Bitcoin Consultancy (?): http://bitcoinconsultancy.com/

but we need more of them!

This thread is full of fail.

There will be no Bitcoin Council because it's essentially the same thing as the Foundation was as initially proposed. What remains to be seen if the true colors in this forum take down the now starting BTC Foundation and Bitcoin along with it.  :(

I think what people fail to see is that any group of people can create a bitcoin foundation.  Any group of people can raise money to hire developers for bitcoin.  Any group of people can raise money to hire lobbyists to make sure the state keeps its hands off bitcoin.  It does not have to be one group, it can be many.  If you don't like the direction of one group, then go form your own.  Humans are not solitary organisms.  We are social creatures.  If you were not, you would not be on a forum.

I ask, who has more money to waste on a bitcoin council?  A few for profit companies that runs on slim margins, or thousands of individuals that are willing to forgo a latte to instead fund their favorite bitcoin group to achieve their stated goals?

A lot of people, like me, became interested in bitcoin because of the potential cryptocurrencies have in the natural progression of cryptoanarchist and anarcho-capitalist philosophies.  Those philosophies don't say "no government."  Instead they say "voluntary government."  Of course people can act like cats and refuse to form pacts, but don't be sad when the world leaves you behind.

The meek shall inherit the earth; the strong and wise will keep moving.

I think the scammers should start a foundation since theres so many of them.

What you fail to see is that The Bitcoin Foundation intends to control Bitcoin development as the United States intends to control the Middle East.

So form your own foundation to fight back, or are you just going to bitch and moan?

ahahaha that's sig worthy  ;D

I am a lone wolf. I have always been. Social organizing has never been my specialty.

I just bitch, whine and moan until everybody sees the truth. If the community as a whole values the point, it gets done on its own through mass resistance. I believe I serve a role towards my preferred end.

The bitcoinfoundation.org website was or is getting DDOS'd, so I am quite content with how things are now. People are aware and that's all I desire. If everyone is aware it all gets done.

We don't need formal organizations to have everything done in our preferred ways.

Now that is a fascinating idea.

"P2P" representation exists naturally for any shared goals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaderless_resistance

You guys think very inside the box.

It will come, someday.
But I doubt it will be part of bitcoin.

The more I think of it, the less I want any of this at all. I'm not interested in a council, union, org, or foundation.

I can be "da regulatr" to all this mess
and will appoint one "coordinatr" to help me

If this is going to represent "the while Bitcoin community and it's spirit" the following persons need to be in there:

- pirateat40
- Bruce Wagner
- Zhou Tong
- Tom Williams (Oops, I had Bruce Wagner in the list already)
- The Bitcoinica Trio

Exactly, in a community THIS vocal the chances of TBF doing something the community deems harmful to Bitcoin is practically nil. The shitstorm would be epic.

Look at what an outcry even this one first announcement of their existence has produced. And they haven't even done anything yet.

Of course they haven't. They are waiting for enough members to sign up, so they can start doing what they consider is VITAL to bitcoin: Paying Gavin. Because you have to realise, so far Gavin has been doing ALL of this super hard work for NOTHING! _{Please forget about the few thousand of coins he's sitting on since being an early adoptor. The fact that this translates to a million dollars means nothing.} So far, you thought Gavin was doing this because of his ideals? Or because he felt bitcoin was such an awesome project? Because he liked coding? WRONG. He did it for money. Your money actually, so become a member quickly!

Will they also be paying the lead developers of other clients? If not, then why not?

Exactly, I think we agree. If they want it to be called "The Bitcoin Foundation", then no devlopers should be paid by them, especially not if said developer(s) will only focus on one client, one sollution and at the same time be under the influence of money-hungry companies who are even in the board of the foundation.
If they do want to have all of that, pick a name that fits it.

Someone on the forum mentioned great idea what "TBF" stands for - "The Big Fail". I think we should call it this way, it suits better than "The Bitcoin Foundation".

I'd prefer "farce" over "fail" :)

Lead dev and his dev team getting paid by the foundation to code is not a problem. The problem is the circumstances. If a lead dev and his team are merely independent contractors then there's nothing wrong with that, if however he is a founding member and on the board of directors for at least the next two years and getting paid to code then that's a conflict of interest and that is a problem.

Remove the conflict of interest and I wont have a problem if they, being run by whoever, pay him billions.

If I remember, Linus Torvalds did not get paid initially by any linux foundation. He used to get paid as an employee of transmeta corporation, which may or may not have had any interest in linux.

He went through three entities before he got employed by the linux foundation, which was something that came out from an open source standards project. This foundation serves as a neutral spokesperson for linux, it just so happens to have it's chief architect under their employ.

uh... this is going to get complicated......

Falvinge impresses me. Satoshi should be there. Gavin Andresen of course.

I like Theymos as well.


Anyone who generally supports the basic tenets of FOSS, personal responsibility, and decentralization and who has a good view of the future.


Here is an idea of what the future will probably look like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219YybX66MY

I would remove "development"...

This is truth right here.

Definitely not you! If there every is a Bitcoin Council you should be excluded, you and anyone else that was involved with Pirateat40. Excluded from both membership and representation.

That's very exclusionary of you. Are you trying to build an elite club of shadowy powermongers only accepting new blood that has been deemed worthy in their eyes, shutting out the common man?

I would nominate:
enmaku
JoelKatz
Graet
theymos
casascius
cytokine
DeathAndTaxes
sgornick
jgarzik
Mike Hearn

It's not clear what the first order of business for this council would be.  

Just throwing it out there: I'd pay 2.5 BTC/yr for a monthly-ish newsletter from the above people, critically discussing the BTC economy, and suggesting specific solutions to problems they identify.  Might be a good way to kickstart the council.

Some articles I'd love to see:

- How are the actions of X company misaligned with the interests of Bitcoin? (Bitcoin businesses or Foundation)

- Did the operator(s) of site X react properly to being (hacked/scammed/organizational conflict, etc)?

- Analysis of the Bitcoin credit contraction.  What kinds of securities had their value suddenly go "poof"?  Which businesses turned out to secretly be investing in HYIPs?  What did the systemic risk look like?  What should future Bitcoin investors take away from this?

- How far away are we from having to worry about Quantum computing?  What is the most vulnerable algorithm in Bitcoin to QC?  When should Bitcoin be quantum-proofed?

- How does the Bitcoin core dev team work?  Is there a 'culture' of this group? Funny anecdotes? What can the community do for the dev team? Does anything about the core dev structure need to be changed?

- How will pools change as ASICs come online?  Will the mining pool, as we know it, become extinct?  Will mining become more centralized?
 
I know all of this has been discussed on the forums extensively, but the signal to noise ratio is very low and the info is scattered among many threads. I would much rather read consistently high-quality content from Bitcoin community members I trust than have to skim the forums for info.  So much so, that I'd be willing to pay.

This idea is starting to look somewhat like BitcoinMagazine, but I'd like something that's directed at BTC users, not newbies, and discusses topics in more depth. I think having a trusted, rational and impartial voice from the heart of the Bitcoin world, which is free to criticize any large player acting in a way they disagree with, could be a powerful positive force for Bitcoin.  Trust and an audience will need to be built first though.

I think it'd definitely need to be someone who consistently keeps their head on straight, has their BS-ometer set to the max, and can research information about anything to a reasonable level before making a decision about anything.  I think that narrows it down to...me, lol.

So, the anonymous transaction process wants to have competing governing advisory councils? How exactly is this going to benefit my anonymous use of a crypto-currency? By having more ways for a shadow government tie my transaction to identifiable information? By having a group of influence brokers set the table for future con games and create rules to benefit themselves and their cronies? By giving the semblance of legitimacy to the criminal fuckwits that have already been listed as potential board members?

Bad idea. Very bad idea. Very bad, kill this infant in the cradle, smother the parents who came up with the idea, eliminate any genetic trace of their lineage, scorch and salt the earth they walked on, bad idea.

Here for the tl;dr simple minded crowd:

Bitcoin is about anonymity. Having a means to transfer value without anybody else seeing, taxing, controlling or registering what you do and how you do it.

Foundations and Councils and Unions and all this other centralized governing horse shit is about the exact opposite of that. It's a freaking old ladies tea and crumpet club that wants to exert power and be leaders and make rules and make decisions. We don't need it, we don't want it, we don't welcome it.

There is no form where it is acceptable. It is the antithesis of what bitcoin is. If Gavin needs a salary, some enlightened business should offer him one. If there is a need for paid development, then put out a call for bounties to be paid from the anonymous community to the anonymous developers.

This is absurd and evil.

And it is that kind of thinking that would make me perfect for the council, because I wouldn't accept the nomination, and would not serve if selected.

Forget the council thing, make this newsletter!

that is a great idea, we really need something like a monthly bitcoin magazine.

I nominate each and every one of us, acting in our own rational self interest, providing ideas whose merits are based only on the quality of those ideas, and on how much the people who came up with those ideas are willing to put in to make them a reality.
I still don't know why we need a specific single group, or even competing groups.

We don't need any more councils or what ever, the bitcoin foundation is fine as it is - just join and move for a vote on changes if you want any

And you don't question how two companies hold seats, unopposed by any other companies or competing companies? Or how there are no checks and balances?

Well in that case, what would a council even achieve?


I honestly don't think anyone should speak for any one other than themselves. I certainly don't want someone speaking for me.

If someone wants to hold a vote on something, that can already be done on the forum or the mailing list.

Want your proposal to be documented once it has a consensus? Put it on the wiki, post a locked thread, summarise it on the mailing list - where ever people feel is appropriate.

You then want to communicate that to pool operators or miners? There should be a place those ideas that reached consensus can be referred to - the wiki seems the best place to me along with an announcement on the forums and the mailing list.

The mailing list (bitcoin, not bitcoin-dev) on sourceforge a bit dead? So what? It's still there to be used and could do with some life.

As for communicating with industry, well... I'm not sure an anonymous group of members that call themselves a council would get listened to...

Alright, I'll bite ... I am officially announcing a new group: the Bitcoin Anarchists Securing Trust And Revolutionary Decentralisation Syndicate.

The Bitcoin Anarchists Securing Trust And Revolutionary Decentralisation Syndicate (BASTARDS) is open to all and sundry.  :)

In the same vein Team Ponzi hereby announces our official renaming to Statists Communicating Against Maleficient Bitcoin Operated Treachery (SCAMBOT).

Cascascius gets my vote

I second this.

I think this idea need to be revised and put into practice rather sooner than later. We're already starting to see "benevolent programmers" between ranks.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=197414


I would vote for having an "invested" Bitcoin Council, like everyone that has a certain threshold of bitcoins can propose and vote for other proposals. Selecting certain individuals would not be necessary in this case.

Nice necrothread.

Political development is so... predictable.

So to balance the House of Lords, we institute a House of Commons?  Sure.  Why not?

I want smoothie in there,  For the first group portrait, I want him to be stepping on evolve's foot.  [n.b., that's an historical reference, not a desire to inflict pain...]

Crap.  I really didn't want to be condemned to repeat the past.  I thought bitcoin was our ticket out of that shopworn place...

+1

Never thought of agree with Gweedo on something though :-)

Max kieser definitly! Even though hes a little nuts he has some damn good points!  ;D

I'm going back to my initial thoughts from a few years ago (and taking the side of myself that wishes for the best health of Bitcoin...)

I wish the entire project to be head-less and any hierarchy to be nebulous and ill defined.  This will make it more difficult to attack and manipulate in a predictable way.  I believe things would work out that way and 'Bitcoin' would be better for it.

On the other end of the spectrum (where a different side of me lives) the Bitcoin Foundation is doing a decent job of making me rich off my speculation.  That's fine with me to.  Those who would mold Bitcoin into a system which could be adopted more or less in-total by large corporations would probably make me richer faster so there is a side of me that favors that path as well.

I think a lot of people would love a headless bitcoin system, but obvious the power at be, have different plans for that.


The bitcoin foundation is doing that? Also bitcoin foundation isn't make anyone rich, that is the free market and the passion of the community. I know I have contacted many sites, begging and even helping them to accept bitcoins. So thank you for crediting the foundation for the communities hard work. Also I am pretty sure bitpay, and coinbase are making it easier for large corporations to operate with little overhead in the bitcoin. The bitcoin foundation has done nothing but fill the pockets of one person, that is why we need to break the monopoly, but it will be very tough.

As bitcoin could be easily aligned to bitcoin foundation views since the dev members control the foundation, another foundation or council would not be able to have that same effect. It is power would have to come from the people only and it will not be an easy battle, it would be a very difficult and more pseudo-political power.

Heirarchial systems are fail.

I think everyone that was part of the decision making during the chainfork night should be in, they are effectively the guys who matters.

Funny how people continued to post after this.
Because this is exactly how Bitcoin works.