Bitcoin Forum

All,

coming back from "normal work" and reflecting a bit in the car about BTC, I'd like to share my thinking with you:

Most successful businesses are build around strong people who work effectively in an organization. You have to have: 1) A compelling idea and business model, 2) Strong , intelligent leaders and 3) an organization and processes to enable them to achieve the maximum. (I personally have some experience since I am running a 350 $MM+ revenue business, and profitably)

When applying this to BTC's we have 1) and 2) already. 1) We have a strong BTC idea and a unique P2P model. 2) I see a lot of intelligent people here, both businesswise and technically.

What is missing is the effective organizational structure.

We can have a decentralized "currency", but we can not be effective when we don't work more centralized and structured.

Let me you you some examples:
* Letter to the CCC. A lot of comments in the thread, but it started 2 weeks ago and we still have not done anything.
* Global Exchanges are halted because of a handful of idiots (fraudulent scammers) and the system is still down ... since 2 weeks already
* I could go on forever.  But this should not create negative spirit. There are so many great people and ideas here, but without some kind of simple but effective structure we won't get far.

And we should avoid this.

Proposal:
1) People volunteer to take an active leadership role
2) This should be spread about the key functions needed (business, technical, ..)
3) We set up a voting system to elect the leadership council
4) The leadership council actively drives good ideas forward, deselects less promising ones, etc.

What think?

I think it's a good idea but how can we gauge a level of commitment?  It's easy to say "yes, I'll do it" but it there were an incentive for the leaders besides honor and respect, it would encourage more activity, imho.  right now people do this because it's 'fun'.  if it starts to feel like work then people want more, like getting paid with bitcoins.  if there was a way to compensate these chosen leaders...then...

I agree with you. Some sort of incentive is needed, and only if people deliver, they continue getting it... that's human nature.

I also think this can still be fun, though. because if we will be successful and achieve certain milestones on the way, we will get quite some happiness. Most people, including me would do this still mostly for fun. But as least some reward is needed to keep the motivation up.

And definitely, BTCs is a good way to pay.

Just like a German to suggest imposing order upon a naturally occuring market.

You are free to attempt to do anything you like, which is the point of a free market, but you can never represent the community.  I will not support, and would generally oppose, any attempts of this kind from anyone.

That's what I like about this free community. Everyone can have his opinion.

And by the way, I am offering help; but I won't be able anyhow to play a leading role since I won't be able to spend much time due to my job.

Bitcoin is nothing more than an electronic commodity.  It's not any political organisation, or at least it should not be.  What you suggest is about as weird as would be the creation of a gold-dedicated political movement.

Now, I know there *are* indeed such organisations, such as GATA (Gold AntiTrust Action Committee).  But this organisation exists only because of the manipulation of gold price from central banks.

So, I guess a bitcoin organisation would be required only when central banks will start trying to corner the market.

I am willing to honor and respect people who do cool stuff.

S3052, I think your idea is exactly what is needed, within certain boundaries.

There are a lot of good ideas generated on the forum about how to drive bitcoin forward, but nothing gets done because...
1) the suggester doesn't have the technical skills to execute
2) the idea requires several people to work in a co-ordinated fashion, and there isn't a way to easily co-ordinate
3) people would 'help' with execution of an idea/project, but don't want to 'lead'.  Without leadership, it won't get started.

I don't see how S3052's idea needs to infringe on the free-wheeling atmosphere of the bitcoin community.  It is simply a separate mechanism to execute on some ideas to (hopefully) move bitcoin forward.  Nobody has to participate, and this structure would not have any 'control' over bitcoin development.

People who choose to participate could commit themselves to a specific function:
-technical
-marketing
-public relations/promotion
-idea vetting
etc.

Initial steps could include:
-defining a mission. For example: "Team BTC exists to promote the use of Bitcoins in the world economy"
-gathering a list of people who are committed to this mission and want to contribute labour, money, ideas
-gather a list of the skillsets from the volunteers
-strike a nominating committee to find candidates for the leadership council
-hold elections
-determine functional heads
-select a web platform to manage the community and it's projects
-start accepting suggestions/ideas from the wider membership
-vet the ideas and prioritize (these could even be voted on)
-get to work!

You have nailed it brilliantly (and expressed it better than I did  :)).


If the BTC team needs some business / marketing, strategic help I will be available.

The current bitcoin community is quite small, and the bitcoin-related websites tend to be bare bones, produced by geeks for geeks.  The average consumer would have a difficult time obtaining bitcoins, and a difficult time finding useful items on which to spend bitcoins.  At the moment, bitcoins themselves would be considered high risk to novice and experience investors alike.

And...   I think things are fine like that, for the moment.

bitcoin currency will benefit from a slow maturity.  That gives the technologists time to work through minor flaws in the system (witness the recent security updates).  Gives hackers time to attack the system, to try and make it fail.  Gives cryptanalysts time to study the system.

The average consumer, and consumer-friendly websites and bitcoin acquisition methods will come over time... without any need for "strong leadership" of bitcoin.  Let the free market do it's thing.

I created the Bitcoin Mutual Aid Association for the purpose of promoting bitcoins as well to build social solidarity. We only have 3 members.

And I'm a member.
Perhaps a link will bring more people over: http://fivegrinder.com/group/Bitcoin%20Mutual%20Aid%20Association#main

And we got a member already!  :)

I joined as well!

Good that this is starting to get more traction now!!!

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355.0 (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355.0)

I started BitcoinMedia a few weeks ago. The idea was to promote bitcoin through social media and new media such as podcasts and online  videos and collect all the diverse promotion efforts into one organised structure. I am even offering small btc rewards for producing content that can be posted out on the blog and distributed to the different accounts and followers.

On the leadership aspect I would nominate chaord  :).
He can explain better how Visa runs with so many disparate members yet is extremely successful and has been adopted by the majority of merchants.

I couldn't agree more with the premise of this thread.  Incidentally, a recent passion of mine has been the study of healthy organizational eco-systems.  I have thought a lot about what type of organizational structure would best serve bitcoin as a whole and also it's individual participants.  I truly feel that Dee Hock, the founder of Visa, Inc. has the key.

Some quick facts:

• Visa is the largest for-profit organization in the world.
• Visa is a non-stock, member owned company.  It is owned and governed equally by it's over 20,000 member banks.
• Member/owner banks have maximum autonomy
• Visa is governed by all, yet dominated by none.
• Visa obviously must comply with all national governments, yet is not bound to a specific one.
• Visa is one of the most recognizable and trusted brands in the world.
• Visa had to overcome insurmountable odds and adversaries, just like bitcoin will!
• Many would argue that the key to Visa's success is not it's product/service, it is it's dynamic, adaptable, and principles grounded structure in pursuit of a common purpose.

Dee Hock wrote an unbelievable book chronicling his fascination (and obvious success) in creating a Purpose-driven, Principles-bound organization.  It's called One from Many: Visa and the Rise of Chaordic Organization  (hence my choice of nickname on this forum ;)).  It is by far the best leadership and organizational structure book I have ever read (including graduate school in business).  I highly recommend that anyone serious about forming a game-changing organization around bitcoin-concepts read his book.  What's I find particularly fascinating is that Dee Hock embodies in his organizational principles nearly the exact same things that most bitcoiners hold dear, yet he does it without ever getting into a discussion of political philosophy.

As someone who would love to take the "plunge" into promulgating bitcoin professionally, I am certainly interested in setting up an official organization like this.  I think what we need right now is very simple: a core group of people willing to commit to and serve each other professionally.  Forming an actual organization, complete with organizational documentation (purpose & principles) and the ability to contract with individuals and other businesses, is the best way to move forward.

If you are interested in doing this at a more formal level, please email me at chaord.btc@gmail.com Please include some details about yourself, and an indication of resources you currently have at your disposal (time, expertise, assets, money/bitcoins, etc) that you are willing contribute towards a shared purpose.  I will aggregate responses and set up an initial conference call where we can define our principles, declare our purpose, and design a structure that will be advantageous for all participants.

Sound good? Ok! Let's do it!

I love it and I am in.

I keep failing to understand what your purpose is exactly.

He is trying to make bitcoin the success that visa is. That is a worthy goal in my mind.

With the right support , the right people and emulating the methods of  successful similar organisational structures bitcoin would take off. What this thread is aiming for is finding those key individuals. A lot of people have the passion for bitcoin but it takes more than that to get it to the next level.

+1 !!!

The very purpose of bitcoin is not to require any centralized organisation.  I don't see why bitcoin should try to mimic an organisation like Visa, for whom I have very little respect, personnaly.

Again, to me it seems just as weird as an organisation dedicated to gold, silver, salt, sugar or any other commodity.

I think that first, you have to define what you mean about "getting BITCOINS successful".
For me, what you need is (in this order):
 - Get bitcoin known for its qualities (anonymous, secure (i think scammer are not possible), no or verry little fees, and so)
 - Have a robust plateform to convert BTC to any currency you may want
 - Have proofs of the strenght of the network (user database size as well as cryptographies analysis on the algorithm robustness)
 - Make sellers propose BTC as a payment options

Without sellers accepting bitcoins, it is not going anywhere.
For that, you need sellers trust, which will require the first three steps listed above.

Once sellers are in, i think this will pretty much be autonomous.

Not sure if such goals requires a centralized organisation, but they may need some follow-up.

My 0.02 BTC

Visa is not centralised. This isnt about a centralised organisation it would be more like a foundation such as the mozilla foundation in my opinion.

As for commodity organisations these exist in Australia and are called such things as a wheat board http://www.awb.com.au/growers (http://www.awb.com.au/growers) in which most of the growers are members and it helps them get better deals than one grower by themself could get.

Conceivably with a guiding foundation at the helm bitcoin may even become accepted by visa itself as a member.

Whatever comes of this has my fullest support. Im in as an evangelist :).

My first suggestion would be to form a consortium of interested parties and get a merchant account in each of the major markets ie the US,Europe,Asia etc... With many members each paying a membership fee which equals the yearly merchant account cost it would help spread the load and would mean the foundation would be a non profit. One membership benefit could be cheaper currency conversion.This would immediately stop the scammers and give the bitcoin economy the liquidity it needs to grow.

This would also enable any merchant wanting to accept bitcoin to do so safe  in the knowledge that their cashflow would be assured.

One person or exchange by themself will be a target imo. This can be easily averted.

Any news on that. I am still excited.

Such an organisation would not be in charge of Bitcoin. It would simply promote Bitcoin's adoption. Also, there is no reason only one such organisation should exist.

Well, to me this very forum and its website IS such an organisation.  I don't understand what we might need more.

Looking at other foundations attached to different projects it is more about developing standards and guidelines across the industry than about centralising the project.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards_organization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards_organization) 


Peer to Peer foundation
http://p2pfoundation.net/

Open Source Initiative
http://www.opensource.org/

Free Software Foundation
http://www.fsf.org/

Linux Foundation
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/

XMPP Standards Foundation
http://xmpp.org/

Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

Mozilla Foundation
http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/

Ok now I understand better.

BTW, isn't this kind of standardisation supposed to be the job of IEEE and OSI ?

Someone had to create those organisations to begin with :) Such things as Underwriters Laboratory spring up because it is in the interest of industries to ensure their customers are safe. Walmart is the worlds largest retailer for a reason - because they enforce their processes on their suppliers. They wouldnt let a dodgy product appear on their shelves and risk a lawsuit or lower the standards they set for themselves. You can walk into any mcdonalds in the world and be assured the products will be the same even though each restaurant is owned  by different operators.

I see a bitcoin foundation submitting bitcoin to such things as security audits by third parties to get it rated and tested. Imagine the cachet if someone like steve gibson tested bitcoin and gave it his approval....
Having undisputable proof from third parties and independent auditors that the protocol is indeed as secure as the dev team claims means a lot for confidence.