Bitcoin Forum

This idea came to my mind while I was on my way home.


Bitcoin has spawned new industries and services that benefit consumers. We have services that helps others to buy goods online and allow buyers to pay via BTCs, we also have legit cloud mining services and we also have exchanges that enable us to trade and give new leads for traders. Let's not forget the gambling sites.

But there is no single entity that validates the legitimacy of these service providers. Most of these service providers work anonymously and they hold the risk of running away with your monies, or they could be running vapor ware - i.e: provide bitcoin mining service but in fact it is a ponzi.

Should there be some kind of international consortium that vets through these bitcoin service providers, and possible, visit these provider offices, and the consortium will go through some kind of check list and ultimately give the "stamp of approval" that the bitcoin service provider is in fact legitimate?

Is this idea even feasible? Or am I drunk?

To start off, perhaps someone should verify the existence of cloud mining service operators.

Edit (Add on):

I was thinking along the lines of some formal international based organisation that provides guidelines for bitcoins. In the sports world, there is International Olympic Committee, FIFA (corrupted anyway..). In the computing and engineering world world, there's ISO committees, IEEEs to ensure standards and ethical guidelines to conform to and to oversee the growth of an industry.

Yep. You're communicating with the committee board right now: it's called public opinion. And as an ad hoc committee member, I personally reject the formal organisation of such a committee, and wouldn't accept them as any kind of authority (unless they earned it through whiter-than-white transparency and objectivity, which is unlikely).

Still, if you yourself believe you could be an unbiased arbiter of such an organisation, you should do it yourself. You appear to be suitably motivated.

MTGox had real customers
MTGox offered a real service.
MTGox had real offices
.. it would have passed the tests,.... right up until 2014.

even with a "stamp of approval" it doesnt mean that things cannot change overnight.

EG butterfly labs was making mining rigs, people were receiving them......
the community even had someone "investigate them" he put his stamp of approval on them and later went and worked for them..
then they promoted their next-gen gear.......and we all know how that turned out.

Goldman sachs had the biggest stamp of approval any company in the world could get.. right up until 2007

bitcoin-core had a big stamp of approval. right up until 2015. now there is debate in the community about what direction core is taking.

OK, so if you're so convinced they're "doing it wrong", support some coin that implements the non-ideas that you keep espousing. Why do you keep trying to screw up a project that you have zero relevance to?

did i personally cause the MANY round table debates? no (wait your going to pretend there were no debates. if there was nothing wrong there would be no debate .. right?)
did i personally cause mike hearne to leave bitcoin community? no
did i write up the employment contract to move Gmaxwell over to concentrate on sidechains? no
did i cause Luke_jr to backtrack and no longer want to do certain things agreed at the round tables? no
did i manage the partnership deal with PwC? no
did i tell miners that if they dont accept segwit, that the entire mining algo would change and render their ASICs useless? no

i agree i dont have any relevance to bitcoin-core.. but me screwing it up?? now thats comedy gold!!

go back to your monero as that has more relevance to you and your little ilk of friends

...

I am unqualified to offer a solid opinion on technical matters, but in general "official" committees to vet things are to be avoided.  That creates ugly Party Lines.  The technology changes way too fast for Committees.

With Bitcoin, it is Caveat Emptor and to take great care in managing your BTC and transactions.

This forum and other places (reddit, etc.) are probably good enough.  As above poster wrote, public opinion is likely good enough.

I for one, will never serve on a committee that might be held accountable for the theft of millions of dollars, like what happened with Mt Gox. We have more informal ways to deal with these kinds of services. We

report them to sites like this --> http://www.badbitcoin.org/ or we throw them to the lions here --> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0 .... Who audits the reserve banks, when they print fiat money

from thin air? Nobody..  ::) ..If suspected of fraud, report it on public forums and when found guilty.. report them to the relevant authorities in that country.  ;)

Personally, I think there isn't a point in having a sort of community that vets the various providers within the Bitcoin economy, and that's because there isn't really any way to enforce anything happens or that things will keep moving normally. It's like giving a sticker to a company that produces "x" or "y"; just because they meet the standards one day doesn't mean that it will stay that way.

My simple answer to that question is "no"  how could that even be possible to set up and regulate.

Certainly not, if it means that businesses will be hindered to operate without approval and certainly not if any costs are generated from the activity. I think it's a very silly idea, because who will be vetting for the legitimacy of the consortium? Some kind of meta-consortium? ;D

Also I don't understand why this is a Bitcoin specific idea. You could demand the same for any business out there. It's just another form of shifting responsibility away from the individuals involved. I can't approve that at all. Instead of giving away freedom by demanding a nanny that protects people from even the slightest harm, people should learn (again) to think for themselves. What is the problem with each customer scrutinizing the services he/she is offered? If that is too much to ask, people should stay at home with shutters closed tight and not engage in any dealings at all.

ya.ya.yo!

i think the easier thing to teach people is to do their own due diligence..

my favourite rule
"if you do not know enough about someone your trading with, to be able to meet up with them to slap them with a wet fish should they do you wrong. then dont trade with them or take the risk knowing its a risk"

though there should be no real reason that a business needs to register in every state and every continent and reveal every accounting spreadsheet they have. just learning the basics about who you are transacting with to settle your fears of risk, should be a good thing to do.

EG just type in a businesses name into google followed by "complaint" or "scam" or "review" usually gets you better and more uptodate info than a rubber stamp agency

Have any of our self styled Bitcoin overlords proven to be any less scummy than others in cryptoland? It doesn't seem like that all that often to me so I'm not convinced a committee would be of much benefit.

I was thinking along the lines of some formal international based organisation that provides guidelines for bitcoins. In the sports world, there is International Olympic Committee, FIFA (corrupted anyway..). In the computing and engineering world world, there's ISO committees, IEEEs to ensure standards and ethical guidelines to conform to and to oversee the growth of an industry.

Very likely not workable for the bitcoin world, just sharing my thoughts. :)

Something like this would be very nice but I honestly do not think this will ever come off the ground(the idea itself).

Ah, you're one of those "someone ought to do something about that" people. It's YOU. YOU are the someone you are looking for. If you accept what washes over you from some self-appointed "international experts", you will get everything you deserve. I'm definitely out.

I would actually find such an idea very attractive.

Firstly, we have to stop thinking about "us" - yes, us. The members here, and start to look at the greater picture, and start thinking about bitcoins wider audience. Not everyone (in the foreseeable future) that purchases products directly or indirectly with bitcoins would spend/contribute hours upon hours on this forum, or even keep-up with regular stories/news about the ecosystem.

This is my greatest reason for a committee, much like how McAfee provides verified websites, who will inform the public about proven, and possible legitimate sites with low risk.

What you are talking about is regulation from a small source compared to regulation of the masses which is far more effective.

I think it is a bad idea, give any small group an amount of power and we all know where it heads.

Carlton has the right outlook here.

And the OP wishes for as large a group as possible, i.e. international scope. He comically cites FIFA and the IEEE, despite the corruption those institutions displayed in the past. Totally bizarre, why would you lust after a model that's proven shaky at best?

I have no idea how you could find this attractive.

So assuming that someone does not like me in that committee, and that someone lobbied against me, my 'service' would still get verified? ::)

My initial though after noticing the thread was that it would be local (e.g. limited to a forum such as this one). Such a idea would not be that bad since the forum is privately-owned, but determining what should and should not be allowed can get very difficult. On a global scale, this would definitely succumb to corruption. A decentralized system such as Bitcoin does not need centralized 'committees'.

lol I said "trying" to screw it up. And you're trying too hard, as usual


The only evidence of my interest in Monero is.... you repeating your baseless BS claims when you run out of the rest of your BS.



Franky, don't you realise that your constant inventions, contrivances and lies can be easily checked? You're not very good at this

Oh not even just modern groups like FIFA which is horribly corrupt. This type of behavior has been around for millenniums and as long as money is involved the chances of corruption goes up 100%.

No I think we do not need a "centralise" body to vets any bitcoin activities. However, users should use their own judgement when using those services, such as online wallets etc. Such services are easy way to enter bitcoin world but a concerned user should learn about how bitcoin works and eventually responsible of holding his/her own private keys....

Not a bad idea to have an international regulatory body or advisory board to govern responsible use of bitcoins. But the path to it won't be easy.

There will be rival factions for vested interest and a central commission will defeat the idea of centralization.

I think yes and i think it already have now.Posting on this site and gatherin infos from replies is already a commitee,public commitee.Commitee is very important on any things specially on a business.

i have personally no experience about this. and not physically know such kind of society. i have hear the news but dont know personally. my such kind of society are present there.

Personally I think its a good idea.  Its much better to have market police itself rather than governments and regulators.
One way to do that is through organizations/businesses that review other businesses.

I wonder if the co-founders of Bitcoins were ever interested in such an official committee? Or the whole team are too fractured to even sit on the same table? haha

no because they can become biased and don't judge these services and service providers properly and putting so much trust and power in a group of people will create some kind of centralized power that i don't find favorable.

besides there is google available for us for a reason :)
use it to find feedback and information like their address about any service you want to use.

No, jonald, you didn't even read the salient part of the OP (quoted). The proposal is to create an international institution with "absolute" authority/monopoly, if not why give examples of exactly such questionable institutions in the edit. You're throwing your lot in with the pseudo-fascists, as is typical of you.

This, I hope we can push this idea to the masses.

Just like hotel bookings, etc that have ratings.

We could maybe start a "business rating section" or something that would be neat. 

Mr. Theymos?

Exactly, the last thing Bitcoin needs is even more self-appointed centres of the universe ::) We've got multiple organisations making out like they're "Bitcoin officials" already, yet none of these preening peacocks seem to understand that in order for the to be officials, there has to be an office. And there isn't one; that was always the entire point. Duhhhhhh.

Did they do anything about all these shady dealings that involved BTCs? i.e: HYIP, Ponzis, "cloud minings"

There are all sorts of precedents in the world today for accreditation or auditing bodies that are not sanctioned by any government, that play a role in the free market. College accreditation services and corporate audits (TS16141, QS-9000, VDA and so forth) are examples. Corporate customers, families with students, and others in the free market find sufficient value in such services to maintain them, despite the fact that none of them are perfect.

There is an obvious opening in the bitcoin ecosystem for services that provide some form of vetting - the cloud mining topic mentioned is a good example. And I'd rather have such services spring up from the grass roots (and be used or disregarded voluntarily by individual bitcoiners) than have them imposed by governments in response to ongoing scandals in the bitcoin ecosystem.

Did they do anything to improve the overall image of bitcoin?

There is disdain for committees but someone has to start the ball rolling. If there are no self appointed group of experts to start the system, there will not be progress.

Start a system, understand the flaws from other systems and improve your own.

My sensing is that there are mixed feelings about this. I am certain there is an ideological camp who believe strongly in decentralisation and a committee will go contrary to their own beliefs. Another point to note that perhaps the key persons and dev in the BTC community prefers to keep their anonymity.

The image of bitcoin could only be improved through promoting its merits such as its status as a global currency that benefits the global community, instead of being used for ransoms, or used for HYIPs.

The ideological camp is only a small portion of the global btc users, and another small portion of users who do trading.

I do not want to sound cynical but majority bitcoin users seems to be used for underground operations such as dark markets, ransom ware, ponzis.

I wonder is there a demographic of global bitcoin users.

Bitcoin users hate to be regulated. But they make a lot of noise when their favourite unregulated exchanges goes bust, and offline.

The latest fiasco, the scam of Hashocean has attracted many new angry users in this forum.

Imagine a Venn diagram of Bitcoin users: one circle for those with a libertarian stance on regulations, the other circle with Hashocean vicitims. Guess how much intersection there is?

If the plan is to raise a bitcoin tax to finance the committee and its work, with a fee to get a license from that authority to anyone offering some kind of BTC service, I'm out of BTC.

Most people cannot trust their government, how could they trust a BTC committee?

I agree with you that there must be a committee or a body watching over or regulating the use of bitcoins. In order to increase the security and protection of users this things should be implemented, but since the government have not yet included bitcoin in their policies it is still far from reality. As of now, we must be always cautious in investing and using bitcoins since hackers and scammers are everywhere.