RE: CoinDesk article "Bitcoin Needs an Aggressive Legal Defense" by John Matonis

"What government permits with one hand, it restricts and strangles with the other."

Indeed, especially financial regulation.  Fiduciary law enforcement no longer restricts itself to discovering and prosecuting the scofflaws.  They want to oversee the asset transfers of all citizens, innocent and outlaw alike.  The regulators want us all to stand naked in a spot light.

A recent story in the news, the IRS seizes $33,000 from a restaurant owner in Arnolds Park, Iowa.  The IRS' rationalization for the confiscation?  The owner deposited less than $10,000 per deposit to avoid triggering a government report.  This person is not alone, in 2012 the IRS confiscated the assets of 639 businesses and individuals without charging them with a crime.

Regarding financial transactions and the confiscation of assets, we've moved from due process in the courts to the regulator's arbitrary application of law.  We are now guilty until we prove our innocence.
 
A law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) implemented this year requires that you report assets over $10,000 held outside the US.  Not just income mind you but ownership. Why does the government want to know what you own?

Yes Bitcoin needs all the legal support its supporters can muster, but not just for the sake of Bitcoin. 
Cryptocurrencies are one battleground in a larger war.

In its February 21, 2014 edition, CoinDesk published an observation made by Gavin Andresen regarding the work performed by the Bitcoin core developers.  More precisely, he contrasted the effort expended by the core developers with the lack of effort expended by users of the network, particularly by those companies that extract financial gain. He strongly suggested that "... if you are making a profit using the software, you should help develop, debug, test and review it."  His comments in this article have brought to light an issue fundamental to the future success of the Bitcoin economy. 

However, Mr. Andresen did not go far enough.  His admonition and goad to action will most likely fall upon deaf ears.

The multitude of benefits of a digital currency is known and has been rightly noted.  A cheap method of money transfer portends a new realm of economic activity, i.e. microtransactions.  In the poor regions of the world, immigrants will be able to send money to their families in their home country for pennies on the dollar.  Family businesses in the backwaters of the world can sell their goods to the world because they trade in a universal currency.  Utilization of the Bitcoin economy by these folks will increase as their access to BTC increases.

An inexpensive payment system beneficial to the common man is also an efficient means of money transfer for commerce.  There are businesses profiting from the expansion of the Bitcoin economy.  There will be more in the future. 

The potential of Bitcoin mentioned above merely reiterates what enthusiasts already know.  The point is, as the Bitcoin economy grows, as more people and businesses come to rely upon it, the importance of maintaining the underlying network and protocol grows in the same degree.

It is untenable for a system used by millions of people to transfer massive amounts of money all over the world to rely on essentially unpaid volunteers.  The psychological and/or emotional rewards afforded to the core developers for creating and maintaining this system will understandably diminish as they see the users of the system profit from the developers' work.

The Bitcoin network must be built upon a free market.  It is not likely to receive government subsidies or corporate sponsorship.  Nor should the largess be accepted if offered.  BTC must rely on itself, on the users, the miners and of primary importance, on those who keep the system functional.  It must rely on the uncoerced exchange of productive effort applied to the maintenance of the network in exchange for some form of remuneration paid by the network.  We must create some type of feedback system that rewards those who maintain and improve the Bitcoin network.

In short, Bitcoin core developers should be paid!

The not-for-profit purists among us will cringe at this suggestion; but please put yourself in the developer's position.  How long would you willing to work as a volunteer while others profited from your work.  Miners are paid to mine.  Users save money by using the network.  Likewise, the system must provide incentives to keep a cadre of core developers interested.
 
This feedback mechanism need not violate the open source, distributed paradigm.  Perhaps a coin similar to Devcoin could be merge-mined along with BTC and funded by a percentage of the transaction fees.  This coin could in turn fund network maintenance and implementation of new features.  The amount awarded for work procured could be voted upon by users/miners.
 
Not offering remuneration to the keepers of the system is a flaw in the system.
We need to seriously consider rewarding those who keep the network up and running.