Bitcoin Forum

Upstart Business Journal reveals that crypto-anarchist Cody Wilson will run for a board seat on the Bitcoin Foundation for no other reason than to disband the organization from within.  His next opportunity will be in January 2015 when some seats will be up for election.

Wilson said:
“I will run on a platform of the complete dissolution of the Bitcoin Foundation and will begin and end every single one of my public statements with that message.”

Wilson is a co-founder of Dark Wallet, a project that adds layers of privacy and anonymity to Bitcoin transactions. He is also a co-founder and director of Defense Distributed, a stealth organization that made waves by releasing the specs of a 3D-printable gun. As his trajectory shows, Wilson is a staunch crypto-anarchist who wants to use emerging technologies such as 3D printing and Bitcoin to disrupt “the system.”

On the contrary, the mission of the Bitcoin Foundation is to “standardize, protect and promote the use of Bitcoin cryptographic money for the benefit of users worldwide.” In other words, taking Bitcoin mainstream. That requires working with the regulators rather than against them and making the necessary concessions to their compliance requirements. Therefore, the mission of the Bitcoin Foundation is evidently at odds with that of crypto-anarchists like Wilson.

in my view: stupid. can he also create & build something usefull?

post!
the!
source!


 https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/cody-wilson-plans-destroy-bitcoin-foundation/

Self-promotion stunt from Cody?

Doubt he'll get a single vote. Voting is done by members. To become a member, you need to pay annual fee ranging $1,000 - $100,000. Don't think anyone who paid will be voting to disband TBF.

He did/does: Dark Wallet

Money talks. If he has money, he can do anything. Noone can stop him if he has cash.

Does Cody code ?


So, whats the story with TBF ?
You have to pay to be a member ? That sounds dodgy right away. How about a democratic single transferable vote electoral system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote#Voting) - maybe it could be done via the blockchain ?
I dunno.

Presumably the worry with TBF is that it will be co-opted by big business - or compromise bitcoins core values for widespread usage ?

I'd argue the problem's just letting a group of people appear to be the authority on Bitcoin without necessarily being selected by the community, which is not limited to people paying annual dues to an election committee. TBF does more than select who gets to talk to the press, obviously, but I think that's kind of the rub, because members sometimes say things some of us consider antithetical to whatever "we" think Bitcoin stands for. They've done some good things. The other similar issue could come from TBF selecting not only who talks to the press, but who talks to governments, where the message could be even more critical. That said, I'm unaware of TBF ever actually claiming to be *the* voice of Bitcoin, and I've never heard of any government agency which says "well, we can only have one expert at the Bitcoin hearing, so let's call up The Bitcoin Foundation, cause it sounds legit!" I've gone from being leery to being a donor to hating them (some pretty tragic choices for board members) to ambivalence.

so in a way, do you think cody wilson is 'liberating' bitcoin somehow by 'destroying' TBF?

edit:  i'm pretty sure the community could come up with something better than TBF if ever it was 'destroyed'.

No. TBF does some solid stuff, including offering legal assistance. Some highly-integrated members do controversial stuff, including calling for increased regulations. I don't see how it could be portrayed that Bitcoin is negatively affected by TBF in a truly significant way, and I don't believe they're a net detriment to Bitcoin. That said, there may be better ways of going about handling the "macro" and "real" issues with Bitcoin (legal, PR, "setting the agenda," community organization) - but if there are, that should probably be the focus, not destroying something else.

Word from the horse's mouth. More authentic source: https://twitter.com/Radomysisky/status/530346647427874816

Cody Wilson, sounds like a pansy.  Check.
Is a pansy.  Check.

i dont understand how he will destroy it? will he get other people elected to follow his agenda?

https://twitter.com/Radomysisky/status/530346647427874816


Well, so far we're on the same page: Bruno Kucinskas will run for TBF board seat, running on Cody Wilson's platform. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=850410)

This is only your interpretation of the "mission."

I do not see "taking bitcoin mainstream" as meaning "working with regulators rather than against them and making the necessary concessions to their compliance requirements."

In fact I see that interpretation as fucking nuts.

So Are You Fucking Kidding Us?

Huh?  I thought it was like $25 or something.

$25/annum or $250 lifetime is for individual members, but don't think they can vote. Nothing about voting is mentioned in the benefits:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/join/ (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/join/)

https://github.com/pmlaw/The-Bitcoin-Foundation-Legal-Repo/blob/master/Bylaws/Bylaws_of_The_Bitcoin_Foundation.md

(c) Limitations on Voting Rights of Members. Except as otherwise provided for by any Board of Directors resolution, no member shall have the right or be entitled to vote: (i) on a sale, lease, exchange, or other disposition of all or substantially all of the Corporation's assets; (ii) on a merger of the Corporation; (iii) on a dissolution or reorganization of the Corporation; or (iv) on amendments to the Corporation's Articles or Bylaws.


Section 4.8 Voting: Each member is entitled to one vote on each matter submitted to a vote of the members of the member's membership class. Voting may be by voice vote, written vote or through electronic means as directed by the Executive Director. Cumulative voting for the election of directors or otherwise shall not be authorized.

Section 3.1 Membership Classes: The Corporation will have three classes of membership:

(a) Founding Members;

(b) Industry Members; and

(c) Individual Members.

Section 6.2 Nomination and Election: The Corporation's officers shall be elected by the Board of Directors in accordance with this Article VI. Each officer shall hold office until he or she resigns or is removed or replaced. All officers must be members of the Corporation. Any director may nominate a member to be a candidate for any officer position in the Corporation. All directors then in office may vote on candidates for such offices. Officer positions shall be filled in an election upon the vote of a majority of directors then in office. Each officer's term of office shall be two (2) years and there shall be no prohibition on re-election of an officer for subsequent terms following the completion of that term. The Board of Directors may issue resolutions establishing procedures governing the nomination and election of officers, provided that those resolutions are consistent with these Bylaws and the Articles.

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Interesting seeing how this will play out. Only the directors can vote for other directors? Interesting.

Thank you!

And.... YEYYYYY! Go Cody! If I make a lot of money maybe I'll do what Phinneus did and join the foundation for giggles to vote for him.

Interesting , but judging from the bylaws someone posted above it might be just a publicity stunt.

How do they expect to get elected with those bylaws? The bylaws make dissolution impossible as well.

That's easy, we re-write the bylaws with a majority vote like the patriot act re-wrote the constitution of the united states ;)

Regardless it will be entertaining.
https://i.imgur.com/2cdgB64.gif

Destory the foundation is a bit extreme. I think starting a reform from within would be good enough.

If I had a vote I would throw to Cody Wilson! Good Luck in trying to destroy foundation, hope you are successful!

Bruno, it would be great if u can post a youtube video of yours talking about. We'll see if we can make that viral.

The thread you're in reference to was not of me actually paying $100K USD to become a Platinum Member, but designed to bring attention to TBF and KnC for the bogus $100K that KnC claimed to have paid, of which was, and still is, a big motherfuckin' lie, one that Patrick Murck perpetuated during his fuckin' AMA on Reddit the other day.

After over five months now since, we're no closer to the truth then we were when I penned that thread bringing the big fuckin' lie to everybody's attention, hence being where we are now, and why so many left TBF.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Crypto Anarchists  :o  folks that actually believe and understand the prime directive of Bitcoin.

Yeah, they vote for the individual member board position.  That is what is coming up and that is what Cody proposes running for.

Gotcha. Not properly explained on TBF site.
In such case Cody may be getting some votes after all.

The foundation has two main classes of memberships: industry and individual. The individual member dues are roughly $30/yr.

That said, if you want to join an organization with the intent to destroy it, you might find you are not allowed to join. Duh. Such a childish, immature stunt. He has proven he is capable of doing useful work; I hope he continues to focus his energies on something useful, not total BS like this.

I looked at your post, then your avatar, then I immediately burst out laughing.

I don't think he is under any delusion that he will be successful in becoming a board member. If you haven't caught on, this is indeed a "publicity stunt" in order to start a discussion. He is already successful as we can see and this conversation is just getting started.

Iconoclasm serves a very useful function in society and very much needed here. We are not talking about a few bad apples or incidents but systemic problems starting with the bylaws themselves.

Logically, there would seem to be zero wrongness with the idea of advocating and promoting a decentralized protocol by disbanding a group that was devoted to centralizing (destroying) a decentralized protocol.

I'd say, let that group refuse him, or refuse to let him on the board.  Make them show their true colors.

I totally agree with Cody! The foundation is more harmful than helpful.

Cody Wilson knows what's up .. I fully agree with him 100%. The Bitcoin Foundation is a corrupt piece of dogsh!t

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/1157-nominations-for-individual-election/
Cody Wilson Nominated.

Cody Wilson Campaign Site:
https://disband.it/

The Bitcoin Foundation should be Destroyed
https://disband.it/218/arcanum-imperii/

My words should not be mistaken as part of some centralization controversy. I’m not complaining that the Foundation is corrupt, superfluous, or has undue development influence. I’m willing to be realistic and admit the original intentions of the organization’s founders (Make dough with regulatory cover, bonus points for veneer of public respectability). Like any capable postmodern shysters, they couldn’t just rip us off. It was better to color the whole affair with a farcical civic-mindedness. To run around with this annoyingly earnest mien.

We find their type outside the Foundation as well. I still recall Jaron Lukasiewicz spreading his perfectly bleached asshole for Ben Lawsky back in July, only the day after BitLicense dropped:

    “…the BitLicense is an important asset that will allow us to provide US banking and regulatory protection to our target customer group. I’m happy to see the New York DFS making tangible progress towards offering the first achievable regulatory bitcoin license in the country.”

The first, but certainly not the last!

I say attack the Foundation because it is the think tank of the bitcoin counter-revolution. Its record (hey guys, this time we focus on core dev, for reals) is and will continue to be the (re)production of the state-form in bitcoin thought. Yes, the State-form. That reef on which the revolutions of the past two centuries ship-wrecked. Unseen by the hapless steersmen who with their organization set sail in the name of technological libertarianism.

But bitcoin isn’t ideological! Some stripling yips, dimly aware the slogan is NATO-grade BZ.

What to make of them? The mises-thumping market liberals, the high finance back-benchers, these… startup people. Each in his turn discovers modern political economy’s happy accident, a working stateless currency, and each continues the promotion of the State to de jure universality. They next rally around this word. Oh, you remember it. Every stunted little nequient and pasty oddity shrieks it in choral unison. The signature term of our gigantic Stockholm syndrome: Legitimacy.

 
The Bitcoin Foundation is a Legitimacy Machine

Think of how bad it could have been, writes Jim Harper, acknowledging the enormous criticism now. We had to ensure bitcoin and its human network were palatable, discernible objects of state power. To make bitcoin fit within the pre-defined models of acceptable political-economic practice. Luckily:

    “[Murk] set the tone for public policy in the U.S. today, which summarizes as ‘getting the benefits of Bitcoin while mitigating the risks.'”

And everyone agrees! Everyone agrees with elevating bitcoin to a sublime moment of mainstream acceptability by way of security normalization.

The Foundation’s was a crusade for some abstract unity, fueled by a syncretist drive for it all to work–with permission. But bitcoin with permission denies the universe of political and economic multiplicities that stare at us from beneath all this code. It deforms the raw difference of bitcoin into sameness.

What about we cryptos? We who find the risks of bitcoin to be its benefits? We are damned to a Hell of the Same.

We’re at the heart of the matter now. This Bitcoin Foundation works to provide the moral foundation for state action against bitcoin. Its apologists’ proliferating canards aren’t just the justification of the state-form in thought, but the State’s literal and active manifestation. For the State is not just institutional, it is immanent in thought- it guides, even determines thought’s possibilities.

Be realistic, Harper admonishes us. Recognize how the world works.

    “This is Advanced public policy. I do hope everyone is following along.”

Mfw career wonk pulls rank over political realism.

It’s been two years of this “time to grow up and overcome your dangerous idealism” now. I remember the day we announced the Dark Wallet, the FT reporter called back and said the Foundation wouldn’t go on the record but kept telling her to drop our story and cover the nine million dollar Circle investment. And of course. Allaire is avowedly, even boastfully anti-libertarian. The Foundation knows he’s a grownup who gets it.

 
The Terror

Charlie Shrem’s defense counsel at sentencing:

    “This is the big leagues now, this is American business. To be an American business means to be a grownup, follow the rules. That message is loud and clear.”

Shrem’s pathetic prepared remarks, as earnestly felt as, say, James Foley’s.

    “No one [in bitcoin] is doing this anymore, they’re terrified … Bitcoin needs to stay away from criminals, from people taking actions that I did […] I need to be out there … helping the world to make sure they don’t do a stupid thing like I did.”

The invocation of terror is apt. We’re at the mercy of moral terrorists. The federales and the Foundation tell us that some novel uses of bitcoin are not just illegal, they’re wrong. Morality, the state discourse of Family America.

The Family was all there this year at a little invitation-only event called “Virtual Currency Workshop” and organized by Business Executives for National Security (Because National Security is about Executing Business). CENTCOM was there. And so was our beloved Foundation. Hey, what did they talk about? Chatham House Rule, brother. Impolite to ask. But our old friend Mr. Harper didn’t miss the chance to moralize to NBC. He explains his complicity with terror later.

    “We won’t publicize individual meetings or their content, for example, because doing so would undermine trust with people we are trying to learn from and influence. That’s offensive to acolytes of radical transparency…”

But you are being transparent, Mr. Harper. We can see right through you.

I should say that I agree with the pimps and legitimists and reality fundamentalists in one respect, however. There is a maturity problem. This Foundation lot was never philosophically seasoned enough to prevent their experiment from getting away from them. Harper is right. Pivot all you want, but you’ve built a machine that does something else entirely.

To war on the State one must also wage war on the principles which provide state power with a moral and rational foundation.

I invite you to the ritual destruction of the Bitcoin Foundation.

I was drawn to Bitcoin years ago (long before the foundation) for its crypto-anarchy aspect. The people of the world need another mainstream fully regulated payment system like they need a hole in the head. Let TBF business members continue to change Bitcoin into a fully traceable regulated product and compete with MasterCard/Visa for market share. Who cares. The rest of us can use something else.

I am glad that TBF members are working hard to introduce cryptocurrency to the masses and teaching the people how to use it. When it's time for them to move to a free system the transition can be swift and seamless. Who knows, maybe Bitcoin was always destined to be the "throw away gun" in the hands of the anarchists.

Two angles...

Firstly if people involved in bitcoin want some kind of association to represent their interests, then there will be an association to represent their interests, taking down TBF will do nothing long term, the people who want to associate will associate elsewhere. Maybe it's a statist ploy, break up the association of devs, miners, users and financials and then they go off form their own assocs and fight with each other... but there WILL BE some organisation claiming to represent your voice, it is unpossible to make that unhappen. Reform TBF sure, disband it, absolutely pointless.

Secondly, we could regard "bitcoin" as a semi-anarchic sovereign state. It's imaginary territory has borders. TBF is like foreign affairs/immigration/border control. It's an embassy in the real world. Basically to give that up, seems to me to hand border control to "neighbouring states" in it's entirety and put bitcoin in an iron curtain/berlin wall type situation. In other words, TBF has to make some diplomatic concessions to allow citizens to pass in and out of "bitcoinland's" borders. Without that, bitcoin is less like the land of the truly free and more like a prison. As in the first point, take it away and different one(s) pop up, but that will be a short to mid term loss, due to neighbours getting opportunity/time to encircle "bitcoinland" with a Maginot line while there is no representation, then the next organisation may have to make internal concessions to get that taken away once it has been built.

So IMO, there is absolutely no lasting positive reason to scuttle TBF and only many negative consequences. Sure it's a theoretical idealogical "win" but for pure ideologies sake, the only person who could make an ideologically pure statement of the deed with bitcoin was Satoshi for releasing it. 

Cody Wilson Talking About Bitcoin Foundation In An Interview 1 Year Ago..
http://www.iamsatoshi.com/diversify-ecosystem-dark-wallet

This is a better one imho: https://disband.it/218/arcanum-imperii/

I for one like him eventhough I don't always agree with him.

http://www.coindesk.com/cody-wilson-speaks-campaign-dismantle-bitcoin-foundation/

Good. They are making shitty decisions anyway

Not from what I see. It makes it impossible for dissolution to go to a vote of the general members aka due paying members. The board of directors can vote for a dissolution if they see fit. That portion of the by-laws is covering what an individual who is not a director can vote on.

^ I agree.


This guy's efforts, while seemingly "heroic" are actually just destructive efforts which could be used for construction instead.

Many leaders went to war in the name of "progress" but actually just caused destruction. He is one of those, trying to be honorable and heroic.

As Andreas Antonopolous said (paraphrased): The Bitcoin Foundation may end up doing some useful things on occasion, and you can support them if you want, or don't support them if you don't want. It's totally up to you.