Speaking as someone living in South Korea, we all wish they would stand up for themselves. They need to overthrow their own government and not depend on outside nations to help. </completely off-topic>

Hi Lee, we share the same last name! (And oddly enough, your first name is my girlfriend's family name too....are you stalking me?)

Any company you work for would benefit from using Bitcoin for instant transactions if that company is currently paying too much for transactions, but I'd say the logistics of the Asian side cashing out of Bitcoin once they receive it would be the reason this probably isn't such winning idea.

On that note, maybe the company might benefit more (in a trusting relationship) from Open Transactions or Ripple down the road.

Okay, in speaking with Charlie he said he started it because it is more of a promotional and kind of support group for bitcoin publicly than anything to do with development or running bitcoin itself, so that makes a lot more sense. He admitted that the transparency factor is missing a bit due to the preparations for the conference and that it would need time to be worked on.

From what I could tell (since I've known Charlie for quite a while) is that his must be an honest attempt at fixing some of the major problems we have with our presentation to outsides and legitimacy factor. What I am *still* worried about a bit though is the fact that in order to join you need to pay a large membership fee, and if you don't, you can't vote on what they do on behalf of Bitcoin. I guess that's not any more of a threat of Bitcoin Magazine posting something bitcoiners don't agree with either though, so I guess that's not something worth arguing.

The comments I've read in this thread combined with what Charlie told me on Skype privately lead me to believe that it's just one of those things we'll have to watch closely and see how it goes. I don't, nor have I ever, assume that it is evil or intended for evil. I just want to make sure I'm clear who, what and why I'm backing something if I do indeed intend to back it. Right now I'm not interested in paying a fee to join something as I feel I can make a bigger difference on my own or on these very forums. That, and any money I had should be going to other places.

Thanks everyone for your contributions and I hope this thread serves to summarily answer many questions to newbies as well.

Thank you everyone for your extremely well thought out posts. I think I have a much better understanding of the gist of things but have contacted Charlie on Skype to get a more direct answer from his side of things (waiting for a response). I would hope that while carrying the name "Bitcoin" and "Foundation" together, it would carry a lot of the weight of the work in development and promotion, but so many times before I have seen organizations started by business owners that tend to only benefit their business interests.

If for example, someone outside of bitcoin asked the Bitcoin Foundation for an interview about bitcoin, would we be seeing name drops for all of their businesses, but not rival businesses that were equally trustworthy? If a direct question was asked such as "How can we get bitcoins?", would they mention anything other than the businesses owned by their foundation members? That is something that concerns me just a little. It could potentially be another situation like Bruce Wagner and MyBitcoin causing widespread loss, how MtGox's earlier security incidents are now universally known as "Bitcoin being hacked" by the outside media, and it seems like another organization directly intended to represent bitcoin will only be another single point of failure. I'm just thinking outloud of course, I could be way off base.

My opinion at this moment is that the "Blockchain is our Foundation".

Good grief. The person who posted earlier and had their off-topic post removed,  I had assumed to be just one of the many people on the forums who hadn't realized I had returned to the community to pay the bet I lost and make things right. (Progress shown here and updated by mods). That's why I decided not to respond because it seemed very off-topic.

Now I've been told the person posting is the Chairman of the very group I'm peacefully asking questions about and seeking more information. This disturbs me greatly. I wish an official representative of this organization would have spent even a moment to answer my inquiries than just try to draw attention to my personal mistakes last year. Is this what the site is talking about when it says, "We are determined to keep Bitcoin rooted in its core principles: non-political economy, openness and independence."

I'm very disappointed so far with what I'm seeing in such a short time since starting this thread. I hope over time it will bring some positive points to the organization's existence or garner the professional response of its board of directors.

If I remember correctly, Sirius had decided it best to detatch the forum from the main bitcoin.org site because it might have affected the inage of bitcoin, so I know there is obviously value in presenting a professional image. I'm wondering though if it wouldn't be more effective to do that from within with proper free training and professional consultation to bitcoiners and small bicoin business owners. I guess that's one good reason for a foundation.

Tibanne also fought a court case related to their bank accounts but I'm not sure if that should be considered a benefit to the community, the private company, or both. They also registered the Bitcoin trademark if I recall. Things like these might be something only really doable by a foubdation of sorts. Unless I'm thinking about this wrong, in that these things should be open source, free domain and never need representation. (Satoshi sure did make it hard by disappearing).

Still looking for answers, thank you everyone for sharing your opinions. I really would love to get behind anything that supports bitcoin this year, but the burning last year I got from so many "ask questions later" groups just made me want to ask more questions.

While you're in there, try getting rid of some the shameless advertising written by site authors calling their services "the best" and whatnot!

Bruno, don't let me find out that you've been "mixing" your paint for that barn wood. I don't want the cows getting high.

What on earth are you talking about?

Sorry, that's what the original owner of the domain claims anyway. I have not independently verified that myself, and it doesn't matter *if* that's alright with the people giving them money, but I have to admit-- my uneducated opinion on the site when I was first referred to it and saw huge pricetags for "membership" was "scam". I am positive it's not a scam in the common sense, but it's because I *don't* know that I'm asking here in hopes those who do know will help correct me and help me to make an educated decision on whether or not to support them in the long run.

Sorry if this is not the right section to post this in as the "Bitcoin Foundation" is a private group and not really supported by everyone at this time. Mods please move this to a more suitable location if necessary.

I was recently recommended by one of the individuals that I placed a bet with to stop posting on the forums and join the Bitcoin Foundation instead, only posting there and only contributing to the foundation's good and betterment of bitcoin as a whole. At first I agreed with them that that seemed like-- wait a minute... I immediately stopped my line of thought and started asking myself, "Who exactly is the Bitcoin Foundation and why do we need them?".

A few weeks have passed since I've been collecting information and letting it simmer in my head and now I'm ready to ask some public questions. First, here are my current understandings that may or may not be flawed:

1) From my minimal understanding of open source and linux, many organizations and software projects need their own foundation to help pay for development. This should also be true for something like Bitcoin, which definitely needs continued development.

2) Bitcoin has a horrible (some argue unrecoverable) public image, has been SEO assassinated with connection to "currency" (legal implications) and "illegal activity" (read: silkroad). A foundation would certainly help a bit in astroturfing the internet in favor of Bitcoin (if that's what everyone wants, although Satoshi seemed to just want us to shut the fuck up and use it).

I am sure someone can find an argument against what I said above, so before they dig into me for "not understanding", I want to present what I also currently understand as negative points. (Keep in mind, my question and purpose of this thread is for more information so that I can make an educated opinion on whether to support them or not).

A) It requires a donation instead of just asking for one. I guess that's fine, but where does the donation go? Why is the bitcointalk.org forum not just doing this instead? We have like what, 5000 BTC now that will most certainly never all be used to make a forum? Does the Bitcoin foundation really need 10,000 BTC a year for a "business" just to say that it supports bitcoin, something that was intended to be decentralized from the beginning?

B) There are no public announcements of what the funds are used for. I am honestly not sure how most software foundations do "business", but the foundation purchased the domain bitcoin.us for $17,500 USD. Does that sound like a good use of your donations?

I would absolutely love to give up my new found awareness of the failures of human nature and just support a group of people to do the leading for me, but the more I am involved in bitcoin, the more I am starting to hate this corporate obsession being brought into it. Things like investing your bitcoins for example-- why are bitcoin investments even necessary, isn't just holding your bitcoins the best investment in the history of bitcoin to date?

I'd really like answers and opinions and I hope no one is offended by my comments. Keep in mind I have never been schooled in economics, politics or open source as most of you Android and Linux using Porcupines have been. I didn't even think there was anything wrong with using your real information on the internet before I got into bitcoin (still don't think it's bad, but understand why it's not automatically good).

Looking forward to thought out, mind-changing responses!

Not bad!

Why not have the debate topic manager choose which type of debate payment system they want to use at the time of listing the topic? it would give them more control and help the community as a whole decide which method is more popular as well

To keep things prefessional, timely and better regulated, require a deposit from presenters that they get back if they win the debate, unless someone on their team who also makes a deposit can do a better job at making the point and followup arguments, in which case they get both deposits.

After some thought I've come to the conclusion that the idea of a forum admin asking the forum users for help in storing the forum donated money to random users on the forum is a bit ridiculous. The forum funds may not have been donated/paid with the specific objective of creating new forum software (which shouldn't require more than a free open source forum software and a few thousand to a few trust developers, not $100k), but the forum's money should be handled by the forum. It's none of our business. Just as the forum should have a tech support / administrator, it should have a banker.

In short, instead of asking the public to hold your private funds, hire someone to join your team and take responsibility for it.

Bought instead of sold on Bitcoinica. Only lost 1 BTC, when the price dropped, but then lost $3000 when the wallet dropped.

Did this turn out to be dank? And regardless, can someone who's dropped acid before tell me if this is an example of the side effects?

+1. Bitcoin is a high flying UFO. The lower it goes, the more people get to see it more clearly, but with the added side affect that people are frightened by it more for fear of abduction.

I don't see any good in continuing this thread either. The people involved in the bet have a different thread to communicate in about the actual settlements. I support your motion to move it to somewhere more fitting.

Eureeka! Super Bitcoin Brothers! I'll get started developing it immediately for the Super Bitcoinicon home game console powered by the blockchain! The levels finish whenever a block is found*.

*Note: This device is a miner and profits are sent to the manufacturer.

My dad owns some. It's borderline swamp territory. Apparently Y2K wasn't as bad as was rumored. Yay, didn't need to live in a swamp.