https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/695-should-the-foundation-be-split-up/

The Foundation's stated mandate is to standardize, protect and promote Bitcoin. Well ok, but what do those words mean in context?

I'm sure we can argue forever about the finer points, but my take is that Satoshi designed, created and gifted Bitcoin to every individual on the planet with the express purpose of freeing them and the fruits of their labour (their money) from the machinations of the political and corporate world. That is simply fact, if you read all the available info. Don't read religious fervor into that, I'm really not the type.

Here's the bottom line with regard to any particular money/currency/medium-of-exchange of value: it can continue to have value only while the majority of the users trust it to safeguard the output of their labour, and to transfer that to others with fidelity. If that trust is lost, Bitcoin goes to zero, and by extension every business whose bottom line is tied to Bitcoin dies along with it.

Why has Bitcoin been so successful? Why has it increased in adoption numbers and nominal price by 100x per year for 4 years now? Is it because there was always a constellation of Bitcoin based businesses that could cater to Bitcoin users? Obviously not. It has experienced this rate of growth because everyday people have put trust in the characteristics that are important to them: anonymity/privacy, unilateral control, and transmissibility without interference. But of course these characteristics (and therefore our perception of value) depend/interact solely on the software/protocol.

That said, one might reasonably assume that Bitcoin businesses would devote the majority of their resources to strengthening these features of Bitcoin that the majority insist on. One would expect corporate players to fall all over themselves funding efforts like Darkwallet and Zerocoin based on a desire for self preservation. And yet for the most part they don't - even when it could mean their ruin. Why? Well it's complicated, and almost exclusively due to a particular brand of personal aspiration that tends toward ego, influence, wealth and impatience.

As of August 2013, there were 43 corporate members and 800 individual members of the Foundation, accounting for 95% of all members. Also at that time, corporate contributions totaled 1,826 BTC while individual contributions amounted to 739 representing 28% of the Foundation's bitcoin denominated assets.

There are at least 800 individual members of the Foundation now and yet at most, 2 dozen post their opinions. Most have given up having a mouth with teeth and I can't disagree with that conclusion. Their ideals and their stake in the Foundation has been redirected and deployed almost exclusively towards myopic corporate ends. The bylaws are tailored to wrap that up quite well. There have been no efforts of the likes of Darkwallet or Zerocoin or Jarvick's micro-satellite constellation funded by the Foundation that I recall. And of all the 6 employees I'm aware of (minus Lindsay's deft admin skills), the last 5 hires are exclusively lobbyist/PR/marketing hacks (no offence).

So what do y'all want to do about this? Or maybe you think this is much ado about nothing (as the incumbents will play it). I'm ok with that. Up to you. Just let me know one way or the other if you could.

Thanks.

PS - Patrick Murk, could you post a link to the specific statute(s) that deal with this particular issue? I read through the entirety of US Code 26 S 501 but that proved to be strictly revenue code (and kind of insane I have to say) and so it seems to be dealt with at a higher level. The Canadian legal framework seems to be structured differently and so I'm unfamiliar. Is it handled under general corporate law? Public or private? Federal or state?

Sorry, think I mixed up your first name with the Virtex guy's last name. Duh.

Dave, I've been invested in your HIM fund since May. I sensed you were an ethical and insightful businessman (rare combo). Your performance to date proves that out. I actually didn't anticipate the two Jupiter mining rigs. Good move.

Do you have more tricks up your sleeve that have been brewing for a while?

Thanks,

Stan

Thanks for the info, wasn't aware of that detail. So the FBI has at least one guy that knows what he's doing wrt Bitcoin.

.gov might have 0.25% of all bitcoins at the moment. If they get control of the rest of the purported DPR bitcoins they might control 5% of all bitcoins. But so what?

- If they never do anything with those coins then that's equivalent to someone forgetting their password to their encrypted private key = lost bitcoins. The remaining bitcoins are worth more.

- If they wholesale liquidate their bitcoin holdings to fiat, well good riddance. Bitcoins out of control of .gov and back in general holdings/circulation.

- If they try to use their bitcoin holdings to "manipulate the market" to produce instability and promote reduced confidence, well sure they could do that. Might cause a lot of chaos for some time, but the very action of doing so gradually whittles away their holdings by way of miner transaction fees and/or exchange fees. Eventually, the coins go back into general holdings/circulation and out of their hands.

I can't see any scenario where this situation makes any difference in the long run.

I also don't see any evidence that .gov actually has exclusive control of the private key(s) that controls the 27,000 bitcoins. Think about it. Every report about this is consistent with them simply knowing the public address of the 27k coins, nothing more. I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary either in the news or in blockchain activity.

Do they actually have control of the private key(s)? Dunno. Does it make any difference in the long run? As per the above, I don't see how.

Remember that the structure and therefore dynamics of bitcoin is fundamentally different than unbacked, centrally controlled fiat currency. If a chunk of bitcoins is never ever circulated/transacted/exchanged, it is by definition economically irrelevant (save for the boost in value it gives other bitcoins). If it is circulated/transacted/exchanged, then it must eventually be diffused into general circulation simply by virtue of the fact that it can't be forged/debased, and there is a 21M bitcoin hard limit.

0.13 XBT --> 0.05 XBT / share today. I'm not aware of any breaking news or business fundamentals that would account for this. As a matter of fact, the HIM fund's mining hardware is rolling in and their dividend has shot up 600% in the last month. Weird.

Nervous Nellies over regulation and the BTCT thing?

Thanks MonkeyBear68.

In regards to this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=288518.msg3090397#msg3090397

I believe casinobitcoin is right when they repeatedly characterize this investment as "high risk / high reward", except for this passage in the prospectus:

"CasinoBitco.in reserves the right to buyback outstanding units of CBTC on Havelock Investments with a 30 day notice, with the price being determined by the higher of the 30-day weighted average price or the current market asking price of CBTC at the time of the official announcement of the buyback."

Yes, the company is young, small, behind the curve and undercapitalized, and there are many other problems including the ones KingOfSports alluded to (all of this is the "high risk" stuff). Now, *if* the company gets to the point where they start to take significant market share and "break out" commercially with rapid growth on strong fundamentals (the "high reward" part that investors would hope for), this clause would allow the company to unilaterally cash out the IPO investors at the instant valuation, which might cut them off from the lion's share of the upside over the following months/years.

I don't have a problem with this clause in and of itself, especially since the issuer has been above board with its inclusion in the prospectus. But there's really no way that any "sophisticated investor" (as defined by the SEC) being approached through a brokered or unbrokered private placement would touch this without having the clause severed from the prospectus, or reducing the implied P/E multiple by at least an order of magnitude, making the PPS about BTC 0.000018/share.

With this clause, IPO investors will still bear the full advertised high risk, but might not reap the associated high reward.

I'd appreciate it if someone who isn't a "newbie" could repost this to the thread mentioned above. Thanks.