Bitcoin Forum

I wanted to hear peoples thoughts on Me, or someone else creating a new decentralized bitcoin foundation. The foundation would conduct votes in a public manner where each vote is done publicly on the blockchain and can be easily and quickly checked. Since the website it self can not be easily decentralize, my idea is once the site is created and domain bought, I or the creator would randomly generate a new password and then setup a shamir's secret that would require 51% of the board to agree to make any changes to the site or domain.

Please give me any feedback on the idea or any suggestions on how to improve it. Also if you have a good name for the new foundation that would be helpful as well. I was thinking maybe The bitcoin organization or the bitcoin union.

voting is not a problem, centralisation is not a big deal.. the biggest deal is what will the foundation actually achieve??

no point voting on things that will never happen/ have no control over
no point planning things if the expertise is not there
no point having a foundation if its just a worthless entity hosting votes of worthless idea's..

so show us what expertise can be brought to the foundation you propose. and i dont mean coax later, i mean what expertise exists now that will join now happily.
so show us what goals and agenda this new foundation wants to have and what perceived method of completing these goals are.

otherwise its just a forum with alot of polls but no one backing the consensus results of the polls.

im not flaming you for your idea. but please, show some substance

Anyone owning a bitcoin or satoshi or whatever does not qualify to have a say in Development or anything at all really. If 1 does not participate more than just being in existance 1 does not qualify to change others existance. Just as Democracy doesn't work, this is also naive and stupid.



Also, isn't this teymous guy the obvious candidate for creating a "decenralized" Foundation if it were to be based on the community?

I'm happy with Andreas Antonopoulus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzwWIDIVSTo), I'll stand behind whichever foundation he endorses.

Good! The foundation needs to stop being secretive about what their goals are! The people want decentralization, not blacklists and regulation! Keep the bitcoin tech free!

Agree with you. Especially when it's associated to money.

The bitcoin foundation members profit from the centers of bitcoin they have built. Decentralizing them would run counter to their interests.
Expect them to, at best, not actually pursue this goal actively. Corn pone opinions and whatnot.

Well I think the most logical way to ensure the foundation does there job is to allow the network to make them step down if 51% believe that he is not doing a good job. Also I think paying foundation members would work to make them focus more.

As for what the jobs and goal of the foundation, I think the main goal for the foundation would/should be to spread and increase adoption and make using bitcoins safe. I think this is a question each Board should be asked before they are elected. As some boards may want to focus more on one aspect then another.As for jobs, I think one of the main jobs the board should have besides for voting on changes to bitcoin's source/protocal, is reviewing and security auditing bitcoin business who become industry members of the foundation.

So the only difference is we see all the votes?

I don't see how it's much different from what we've got now ecept using the blockchain. They're still a centralised group are they not? We should forget about the foundation all together. They're there own thing and don't represent us all.

I'm afraid the 51% of the board will not agree to make any changes to the site or domain like that

Well the problem with the board being really decentralized in that there is no board, is that it causes all decision making to take quite a while as everyone or a good portion of users must vote, also if a government wishes for the foundation to speak about bitcoin we need faces that can represent it. The only way I see to encourage decentralization is to allow any board member to be removed at any time if 51% of users wish he would leave.

Perhaps, but surely it's in the interests of everyone if there isn't a single group of people with large sums of the currency claiming legitimacy or leadership over the goals and ideals of all the other Bitcoin users.  If an individual or group wants to claim they represent the wider community, then they're more than welcome to, but it doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't question what they're advocating.  The foundation in it's present form does have some serious questions to answer with regard to it's legitimacy.  Running counter to your point, being a member of the foundation shouldn't automatically mean you have more say than other users over development and other issues.  If someone has a proposal on the direction of development, that proposal should be judged by it's merit and not by who they are or what self-appointed group they belong to.

One thing I'd hate to see is various "foundations" competing like political parties and gradually becoming just as corrupt as political parties.  That's not the direction we should be heading in.  Bitcoin has to remain neutral and free from vested interests.  With various members of the current foundation holding as much of the currency as they do, that sounds like a conflict of interest to me.  Money should not buy influence in how Bitcoin develops, or we risk heading down the same road and repeating the same mistakes as the current fiat system.

forgive me but i like to be constructively critical for two reasons.
1. to see if a project holds any weight in actually working
2. if they do have weight, to tweak and correct things to become better

so heres some points.
1 there does not need to be decisions made by a board
2 there does not need to be a board at all
3 there does not need to be membership fee's

so imagine this
a 'jobs website
where people/businesses can list their goals/tasks they want to achieve. and have a bounty (their costs). then anyone and everyone can put money into that listing, and when filled that person/business carries out their task

imagine this
"bitpay: hold an actual meeting with amazon and show them how to integrate bitcoin: costs=plane ticket+hotel(1BTC)"
"Userxy: get 3 merchants in my town to accept bitcoin: costs=3hours labour(0.1btc)"
"AndreasA: to speak at a government hearing about bitcoin: cost=plane ticket+hotel(1BTC)"

this way people are not paid wages for sitting on their asses, and each task can be individually funded, instead of there being losers or winners.
also it stops vote rigging as the only time these people get paid is by pople that want them to do something. thus if they put their own money in they are simply paying themselves. which is not going to work well compared to 'buying votes'

so instead of putting in large fee's to be a member, people save this money and use it to pay for actual tasks and goals to be filled. this stops the corruption of board members getting paid simply for owning a website and appearing to be an authority

That is an interesting idea. I like the fact of funding bounties, but one the problems that arises is time/delay. For example your 3rd example of speaking to the goverment most likely at a hearing of some sorta. This could take a week to fund and then event could be in 3 days. The main reason  think some sort of board is needed is because if/when a goverment comes and requests someone to speak, they need someone to go to to do the request. Wheater this just means having a head of the foundation who simply talks to goverment and acts as the face of the foundation or someone who just controls the domain this is what would be needed.

As for a member ship fee, I thought about this alot and think a a expensive fee is dumb. I think just a small fee that costs 1-10$ just so that members know they paid to be members. The foundation would get most of its money via sites joining the paying a fee to join and voting. My idea of voting is that each address that contains btc greater then X prior to the announcement of voting can vote once in the election. Memebers who pay would get access to special voting and a physical forum to talk.

I'm not sure I would support the idea of a board.  Personally I'd like to see it go down a crowd-sourced, grassroots, blockchain voting kind of direction.  A new model of decentralised 'Direct Democracy' that, if successful, could eventually be used as a model to override the archaic notion of elected representatives in sovereign governance.  We've revolutionised money with decentralisation, so it should be equally possible to revolutionise politics in the same way.

Bounties for jobs would certainly be a method of achieving certain things, but we'd have to have alternatives for other other situations where that wouldn't be feasible due to time constraints. 

There is no need for a Bitcoin Foundation, or anything it does.

Yes, this includes funding development of the Satoshi client.

That client is just one of several software projects that implements the Bitcoin protocol, and if any of the clients ceased to exist Bitcoin's existence would continue uninterrupted.

again no members fee's just bounties, this will make EVERY bitcoin user a member just by owning bitcoin and they put funds into a bounty if they think the project is worthy.

as for the "problem"

lobbyists dont need to be politicians, government employee's. all they need is to show they are experts in their field and that they have something to contribute.

these government hearings do not get announcd 2 hours before they happen. they are publicly announced way before EG the guy from overstock attended a government hearing on bitcoin as he proved he had some insight in bitcoin related merchats.. also it does not costs $10k for someone to go to a hearing. ATMOST $2k to cover costs of a plane ticket, a hotel for 3 nights, a few taxi fares and meals.

so lets call that 5 bitcoins COSTS.
now look at projects such as seans outpost. dorian nakamoto fundraisers. those earned more then 5btc in a number of hours. so time and money for costs is not a problem..

as for the lobbyists labour. that can be compensated later. mainly as a thank you for an incredible effort at the hearing. after all most people get a salary at the end of the month, not the start. so why break the habit of paying labour before the work is done.

i know there are many smart people that would love to lobby / do PR for bitcoin if only their costs were met. and if they get a payment after for an excellent job then that to them is a bonus.

we should not be thinking of a system where a "nobody" demands average joe to pay subscriptions. and hoards the funds. to then pay out as salaries to dozens of people that sit on their hands all year and only go to one meeting, just to show they have contributed something.

think of it this way. if scientists got paid minimum wage to cover their bills, and were told they could get a big fat bonus for curing cancer...

and then take those same scientists and give them a large salary per year with no contract length, just guaranteed income.. which scenario do you think will end up as scientist turning up bright and early, work hard and find a cancer cure first???

This just sounds like crowdfunding.

yep. exactly.

no point asking alot of people to throw $10 into a pot each then maybe 4 times a year have a vote on 5 projects that are already biased where only one wins..

paying a dozen people to sit on their ass all year and have only 1 task per quarter asked of, maybe 1 of the 12 employee's, due to the fact that the vote winner is the only one with the expertise that the winning vote is about.

its cheaper and more fairer to everyone to 'pay for what you use' and not pay excessively for unused potential.

imagine it, 5 projects up for vote each project has a specialist assigned to it.

he wins...

star soccer and the foundations plan is all 5 vote specialists get a wage per year no matter what, the board also take a cut.. yet there is only 1 person going to a hearing, while the other 12 are sitting comfy taking money out of the pot.

bounties/crowdfunding, simply works and is more cost effective, shows true targets and due to no guaranteed income, makes the specialist more incentivized to work for the people, instead of trying to appease the board with their secret agenda, simply to keep his job.

Yep, as somebody already said, I am happy for the likes of antonopoulos and Andresen to make endorsements and and reimagine the foundation on my behalf

Why do we need a foundation? Isn't it about decentralization?

Okay well I am on board with the crowdfunding/bounty idea. My next question is should there be a vote prior to crowd funding or just funding?

Meaning if antonopoulos wanted to go and speak to a goverment on behalf of all users would there be a vote first and if succesfull then crowd funding?

a discussion thread first to name some names of nominee's. then to speak to those nominee's about their desire to take part. and then have them nominee's that show such desire.. post their own 'bounty/crowdfund' address

stage 2 would be while nominee's set up the crowdfunding/bounty, we have a forum where each project/task is described in full and the discussion can be made about what information or agenda should be most relevent. basically if we all wanted andrea's to mention that no government red tape should take longer then 1 month, to allow innovation to occur. then this would be mentioned.

maybe even have mini poll votes on such relevant points to raise and which hold no material weight in reality.. either as mini polls or kind of like upticking discussion post if good, downticking of bad. then we can see what really needs to be said and the person doing such task can get a strategy, idea's and feedplanned before performing the duty..

same goes for development projects. up ticking if an idea's sounds good EG changing to 100sat measurements.. downticking bad idea's such as increasing the reward, decreasing blocktime which both would cause a change in the 21mill total... for example.

i invision a clone of reddit could achieve this.
with subsection for current projects (the crowdfunding) which links to the discussion subsection to plan what the goals, relevant content and tasks should be. where the most positive and best idea's are shown at the top of the list due to upticks (like a vote, but not)

just went to the Satoshi Nakamoto's Institute (http://nakamotoinstitute.org/). Very nice.. ;)

+1, People are taking this decentralization crap too far. I understand the bitcoin protocol itself is decentralized, but that's a whole different story, you can't compare a protocol to human beings(foundation is made up of human beings).  Not everyone(even people who use bitcoin) know much about bitcoin itself. Not everyone can make thoughtful and fair votes.

It's liked asking an artist if they think the stock price for apple will go up next quarter or not, you most likely won't get a thoughtful answer because they're artists, and know art, not stocks, even if the artist uses apple produts..(Similar to how many people use bitcoin but have no idea the tech behind it, or what it accomplishes etc)

You guys are taking the word, decentralization, out of context...stop comparing the bitcoin protocol to humans...

All interests are vested interest. If everybody who wants Bitcoin to go this or that direction is excluded from decision-making, who will make the decisions then? People that do not care?  ;D

Any decision is result of struggle of vested interests, and there is no other way.
The choice is only in the form of this struggle: politics or money. I hate politics just as you do, so I would prefer the money way. Something like croudfunding.

What should buy it then? Talking on forums? Talk is cheap. If you really want something, you should be ready to pay for it. If you want a feature, pay for the feature.  Isn't it fair?

The Bitcoin Association -- bitcoinassociation.org has committed to move to becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Corporation - totally decentralized.  Founders will have no special votes or abilities.

You seem to have left out the part of the quote was where I said:
And I should append that it also shouldn't be judged by how much money they've thrown at the argument either.  I'm not saying there shouldn't be money involved.  Obviously it needs to be funded somehow.  But people with more money shouldn't have more influence over proposals and voting.  Otherwise you just end up with the equivalent of corporate lobbying where money dictates policy and the majority view counts for nothing.  It needs to be equal and proportionate.  Some form of majority blockchain-based voting system would be paramount, IMO.

A merit for me can be demerit for you. For example, some bitcoiners want more privacy, some want less. How to decide? By majority vote? But voting is a power struggle between two self-appointed groups, fighting for their vested interests, i.e. the thing you want to avoid.

So, I put $1 into development, risto puts $1,000,000, but both of us would have one vote each. To say it other way, I, with friends, will be controlling risto's money. Is it fair? Corporation controlling people's money is bad, but people controlling corporation's money is bad too. Kickstarter-type system with 1coin - 1vote looks much more fair for me.

the system of voting and judging who is best is flawed by things like biased people and those with agenda's
NO ONE should be hoarding peoples money (members fee's)
NO ONE should even ask for members fee's
NO ONE should control/limit the number of idea's that can be voted on
NO ONE should control what is valid or invalid

all that is needed is anyone that has an idea and sets out a plan of actions with achievable goals and proof they will forfil those goals. should simply post a public address to receive donations to cover costs and labour.

that way instead of each member paying many bitcoins for memberships where most gets syphoned off to middlemen. each person in the community can donate as much or as little as they like to the projects they like.

that way if there are plans that benefit corporations then those would get funded. but also anti-corporate idea's wont get pushed aside. as they can be funded too, by ethical businesses or the community that dont like corporations. in the end even the corporations will also help fund community projects as the plans (if at all helpful to bitcoin) will of course help corporations too.

after all good or bad, rich or poor we all agree that we want bitcoin to continue on its path to success.

so stop thinking voting and think bounty/crowdfunding. this will be the true motivation to get projects off the ground

This really sounds like somewhat crowdfunding.
In addition, why do we need a foundation for Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is an open decentralized space!

+1

  Andreas Antonopoulos and Gavin Andresen have my trust, faith, and support too.

 Sometimes it's very tough, and can be quite challenging to rise above. No one can ever be expected to be flawless. These two gentlemen are the types I hope continue to lead Bitcoin. So far they have both shown everyone what true leadership is. Thank You.



Bitcoin is The Future.

a new foundation would require the hard hitting people in the industry to join, otherwise it wouldn't have much prestige. but much like others, i don't even see the point in its existence. all it does is give you a bigger profile, which is not necessarily to help bitcoin's development.. but maybe only your own.

people want the power grab from a cryptocurrency that doesn't want centralization.

a true decentralized foundation would be where there is no one 'in power' where the entire community is involved, not just special members. where there is no power, prestige, profile or ego boosting at all..

if you peel away all the layers of uselessness the current foundation has, and kep the core function, then the foundation pretty much can be summed up into 3 area's

1. idea's planned and discussed, suggestions tweaked into something that will help the community
2. jobs listing where people can head hunt certain talents, nominate already known experts, or simply call out to any interested parties
3. form employment / bounties to ensure the idea's become a reality.

all 3 of these area's can be made possible for the whole community to input, self manage, self fund without really any middle men. where the only central part is the domain name which contains all of this information.

EG this forum (bitcointalk) has made many great idea's come into existence, has helped develop many business relationships, employed many people and ad the community scrutinize idea's on their worthiness to actually work in reality.

so something as open as this forum can work. but without being a 'forum' to atleast keep the agenda of bitcoin growth on track and to reduce useless ramblings of trolls.