Bitcoin Forum

Maybe some that gives more power to the community? Make funds and spending more transparent? Who wants to spearhead this and get the rolling. I think this would be great for a new foundation and the current foundation.

Maybe, have everything voted on , messages and funding through the blockchain. Keep EVERYTHING transparent.

+1 to this ^^ . It just make sense.

Aye to this one.

Transparancy is the core of bitcoin. People who want to change this should not be at the wheel. I say off with their heads

Hell, even name it Decentralized Foundation for a Better Bitcoin.  Call it a day.

the word foundation.. why
using it means you have to register it with a government and then form a selected board and all the other blah.

how about call it a consortium. much like w3c. you can still set rules such as how many board members, what the consortiums aims are, how their funded etc etc.. exactly the same as a foundation.. just without having to tie it to a government register. meaning its a global consortium instead of an american government registered and audited group.

bitcoin does not need identity checks supervised by the USA. so why dogleash bitcoin to USA LAW

while trading bitcoin for products priced in bitcoin, thats for us to supervise our own money
while trading bitcoin for altcoin , thats for us to supervise our own money
while trading altcoin for products priced in altcoin, thats for us to supervise our own money

only identity check when you want FIAT above the amount allowed by the country of the desired FIAT you want.
EG
$10k a year limit
Euro 1k a day or Euro 10k a year

EG if you want to convert bitcoin into dollar to go to a bank account then and only then inside the exchange do you follow the fincen laws.
EG if you want to convert bitcoin into pounds to go to a bank account then and only then inside the exchange do you follow the FCA laws.
EG if you want to convert bitcoin into Yen to go to a bank account then and only then inside the exchange do you follow the FSA laws.
EG if you want to convert bitcoin into Euro to go to a German bank account then and only then inside the exchange do you follow the BaFin laws.
EG if you want to convert bitcoin into Euro to go to a French bank account then and only then inside the exchange do you follow the AMF laws.

you get the idea

Maybe no central council at all? Or would that lead to total anarchy.

I think bitcoins is at a stage where we need a representative body, that can help important project. That can take positions for the community, with the help of the community directing. It is for sure not going to hurt if done properly which is not what the bitcoin foundation has done.

Brilliant!  Let's do it!

Personally, my alternative to the Bitcoin foundation is me, and the voluntary relationships I form that involve Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has already started the slide down the slippery slope.

https://www.gldtalk.org/devteam/evolve.png

Fortunately, there are many altcoins still standing strong by Satoshi's ideal of an independent and free currency. The next step in the evolution is the emergence of the altcoin.

I don't want a place to do that - I want lots of places to do that!

Let there be many Bitcoin foundations, instead of one.

A decentralised solution for a decentralised currency. That's crazy talk ;)

No, if you don't like the foundation, fix it, don't just abandon the idea and walk away.

That is exactly what I am trying to do. Completion will fix them, it is kinda hard when you have major bitccoin businesses and most of the dev team with them, but I am trying.

I wouldn't mind having one or several trade organizations open to any and all businesses that use bitcoin, where owners can voice their own opinion separately from the foundation, and perhaps vote - again, separately from the foundation.

Alternatives for people of differing opinions are important for a democracy to work. And seeing as bitcoin is primarily an economic tool today, I feel that trade organizations/groups are key, just as political parties are in democratic countries.

You can't have just 1 party, you need several in order to more accurately represent the people's different opinions.

I don't really see a reason for another "Foundation."

Bitcoin can run on it's own just fine. All it does is open the door to bad things like red and blacklisting coins.

My reasoning behind having multiple trade organizations is just that; in order to combat red/blacklisting by uniting business owners who oppose such a thing. That's not the only benefit of course, but it's a major one that is highly relevant today.

Whatever you do, base it not in rhetoric but in code.

You can't stop the Foundation from meeting with regulators at this point. That shipped has sailed. However, if you disagree with changes they make to the protocol you can have the code be your protest; disable and otherwise hinder redlisting efforts, etc...

But just imagine if the Foundation dissolves, who talks to the government? Someone has to; whoever takes their place probably won't have a private forum you can peruse and speak your mind. We might not even know who they are.

So what's that saying about keep your friends close your enemies closer...

reposting this from other thread because I feel it's relevant:

I'd like to see some kind of Kickstarter type thing solely for Bitcoin related projects. Maybe it exists? If so, it needs popularising..

Bounties in the Project Development forum are a good part.

I suppose there is: https://bitcoinstarter.com/projects/active?category_id=19

But reading that is all a bit hit-and-miss. Perhaps it's better to fund actual developer(s)...

but yeah.. maybe some sort of counter-foundation; a group with the purpose of developing or promoting the anonymity enhancing aspects of bitcoin.

I haven't joined the regular foundation, but this "counter-foundation" would be something I'd join.

Or maybe, just a "shim" foundation, a small group of people/marketers who work to promote projects relevant to the anonymity aspects of bitcoin. e.g. I don't much read the project development forum, but quickly scanning it I see a few things I should probably donate to. Wouldn't it be nice to get notifications of some sort for the best or most anonymity enhancing "original-satoshi-vision" of these projects? (and those run by devs with a good track record). And weekly updates/newsletters about this, updates on projects most needing funding etc.

Perhaps even we can donate to this foundation, and then when a certain amount of BTC is received, all members hold a vote on which project to be funded. (That way, some larger projects can be funded, rather than many smaller ones...)

e.g.

- community propose and vote on some btc projects
- nominate a destination funds address for, say, the top 10 voted on projects
- everybody sends money to the address of their favourite project
- at the end (either indicated by a time limit, or a specific combined total desired), the project with the most bitcoin "wins", and all bitcoins are combined and just this single project is funded

or maybe this counter-foundation doesn't involve itself at all with actual dev work, their only job (and donations go towards) raising awareness and marketing/promoting existing projects/kickstarters that fulfil some specific "Bill of Bitcoin Rights". (To be written... ;) )

/rambling

I believe that the alternative is called Litecoin.

What about something like a delegated direct democracy?

Also I suggested a Bitcointalk Community Senate here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334419 (though the discussion went a little ot) as a base rooted counter point.

You called for power to the community. This forum makes for a large part of the community.

For the sake of decentralization, I suggest several alternative entities.

??? Are you talking about the blockchain?

maybe it's less about "electing" people, and should be more about building a communications infrastructure. I guess bitcointalk is already that to an extent, what with all the threads expressing outrage etc.. But imagine "Anonymous" style campaigns, where some communications channel or something is created for a particular issue as and when the need arises.

What is the *purpose* of the original foundation? What aspects is it desirable to replace, or provide an alternative to? Answer that, otherwise it's just a foundation for the sake of it and being contrarian.

- funding developments / improvements?
- promoting bitcoin?

Both these things already happen on bitcointalk, with bounties, and with the various threads "let's get X to accept bitcoin, how do I explain Bitcoin to Y".

And if these two things are all a foundation would exist for, then the solution could be something as simple as a new forum with precisely two boards, one for promoting of projects that need funding, another for organising bitcoin marketing "campaigns". (Or perhaps implemented as a Reddit / Hacker News style voting system).

Maybe also a curated Q&A section where verified journalists can ask questions. (or just a heavily moderated Q&A forum where duplicates are removed and questions are heavily focussed on current events in Bitcoin land).

excellent discussion.

so, we must think of this problem in the right context.

We are a highly decentralized group, with different backgrounds, nationalities, languages.

If we are to do this we must be fully decentralized within the world culturally and ideologically.
How do we create this?

How do we reach consensus on what we know, believe or trust?

How do we reach consensus on what we should do?

How do we interface with the legacy governing system?

As a decentralized group, knowing what we know is more difficult to gauge than anything, getting a % of who believes what is also difficult. We must do this efficiently and transparently indeed. The foundation of a Direct Democracy system must be that of openness, openness so profound that it would be considered the most Open project ever made.

And this can be done now using Bitmessage, this is what I propose.

We use Bitmessage to broadcast our beliefs and propositions, our polls and ideas. These statements would be broadcast to a public ledger with the hash of the post, which can be downloaded BitTorrent style to save people the hassle of downloading all the posts; Yes, a Blockchain.

people can be nodes for democracy downloading the whole Direct Democracy ledger, and allowing people to find the posts they want to find, or giving them web interfaces to the posts to be downloaded dynamically in a p2p fashion.
People can also simply download the posts they believe in, distribute those and erase posts you disagree with to prevent them from being distributed. The more people believe in a post the faster it will propagate.

All the posts would be categorized and linked to all relevant and related information, a web of categories and associations. Each post can be given a secondary hash that is simply the metadata for the categories given by the OP, they would be able to change what they want their posts to be categorized or associated with without affecting the hash of the original post.

Each person can sign their messages to guarantee the source of the post.

The more people have a particular hash to share the more likely it is what the community believes, knows, or is trying to figure out collectively, if it's spam or just plain bad... no one will keep it. the hashes always remain on the ledger, but not on peoples hard drives.

This would at least get us agreeing.