VC's do give out money. they just don't promote it as they will have beggers knocking at their door 24/7.

ive personally (although not a millionaire) done litecoin giveaways and just gave away bitcoins and bitcents to people either because i think they deserve them or because im trying to promote bitcoin to new people.

i have printed out business cards with private keys and a website which then instructs the holders to download the qt client from the official site or use blockchain.info. to get started

but i do agree that it's

i prefer to give money to legit businesses and places that help the economy rather then a handfull of guys saying they are opening up a charity, with no charity status or no organised plan as to how to get the funds to the intended recipients.

most VC's don't make themselves known as they then get lots of private messages with peoples business plans. VC's normally stay in the background and view the plan through their own eyes and not how the beggers script it to them.

this is where you are meandering in the wrong direction.
bitcoin does not need representation, such as a CEO, leader. bitcoin needs lecturers and teachers to spread the message.

i dont want management of bitcoin, i want tutors to explain bitcoin to the layman.

representatives as you say are people that say i am the head of the bitcoin community. i wield power.

spokes people as i say are people that know what they are talking about and can help others understand.

if i want someone to speak out in congress or in parliament. then i would search ouut someone in parliament that atleast understands peoples freedoms and knows of bitcoin and has a open mind and get them to be a spokesmen.. not elect them as the leader of bitcoin incorporated.

as for the offshoots of unaccountability... forgive me for saying this. but isnt that called DECENTRALISATION. we need an information source not a leadership. pure and simple. a place to come to that can truly help people to learn about bitcoin from people that truly know what bitcoin is about that can help businesses set up API access to clients programs remotely from their website hosts. that can teach people and media the true ethos of bitcoin.

not a guy that says "i am Mr Bitcoin"

instead having a listing of guys in silicon valley that are creating business and want to help other businesses, guys in new yorks wall street that truly understand finance and exchanges, guys in asia that understand manufacturing and the supplychain that can work using bitcoin. guys in every country that have their own speciality that truly understand bitcoin.
that way there's always someone in each market, in each country that any of the community can use to be a spokesperson if a media story requiring certain topics around bitcoin to be answered. or be utilised to help expand bitcoin economy into the mainstream

not 4 special elected golden children of bitcoin with business cards saying they are CEO's and represent the nation of bitcoin, as if they are presidents of bitcoin

true

legitimise does not mean legalised. i meant that by taxing it, makes it recognised officially.

how about you start a thread that asks people what they want. obviously you want some proper spokespeople for bitcoin that have a varied opinion compared to the elite elected members of bitcoinfoundation.

so instead of starting a whole new organisation purely to get members to vote for an elite elected few spokes people. how about just ask anyone and everyone if they want to become spokes people. to show off their skills and then paste their info in the media section of this forum or even request a totally new "topc" to be made on this forum. then the whole population of this forum can see the variety themselves and grab names/videos, statements that take their fancy. and use those contacts within their own projects/ local contacts with media/own websites.

agreed exciting times. we are still in the era of the victorian/wild west where this newly created currency is only really used for whores in a saloon (cams4bitcoin) food(www.foodler.com) and general household objects(bitcoinstore).

people are still using other methods to get everything they want, so its still early before you can get everything for bitcoin.

as for when will these startups begin.

they already are. but learning from the facepalm of BFL and leaking info early such as 'mtgox litecoin' too early.. many startups are going to keep hush and develop in the background until they atleast have a final product/service to offer.

no alpha test releases. but fully functional working products/services

many people are adopting the phrase "don't do a BFL"

time scales wont be given as anything promised today may be delayed tomorrow. so yet again avoiding doing a BFL.

just enjoy the fact that your reliving the wild west/victorian era of finance.

i can imagine how the tax office would have a nightmare and actually lose revenue by legitimising bitcoin investments

referring to emboldened text: as long as the members are not part of a special breed of elite secret society that requires a large fee and a secret handshake to become a member. other wise the COMMUNITY's voice is again ignored (EG bitcoinfoundation)

forming a membership platform may weed out cloned accounts but it is always going to have a limited voice compared to the millions of users

nothing new..

what proposed is if you are sending money to friends and family like in birthday cards or donations or purchasing things at a garage sale/privately thats not taxable
same with bitcoin

but if you go to a shop, and there is sales tax involved, then yea canada wants to ensure it gets it tax revenue.

... so why do i say nothing has changed.

well if a shop has a product which has sales tax on it. the shop simply values the product with sales tax included and converts that into a bitcoin price..

once the shop sells the coins to get their dollar value, they pay the sales tax..

nothing new at all.

until wholesalers and manufacturers accept bitcoin, whereby shops would prefer to not ever again touch the dollar by purchasing stock purely in bitcoin and then reselling the stock purely in bitcoin...... thats when shops have to become creative.

but right now shops still have to cash out to FIAT to pay wages and repurchase stock.. so nothing has changed. the funny part is when they talk about the investment side.

imagine you buy $10,000 worth of bitcoins. then move it about into different wallet addresses. and then shout.. I LOST ALL MY COINS.

great you can now have it as a income tax loss and pay less tax against your other income.....

meanwhile you can easily keep your coins in cold store and only use them when you go on vacation to Jamaica and meet up with a local Jamaican you found on localbitcoins.com.

(i don't endorse such tax evasive practices nor endorse the only vacation spot should be jamaica)

get a copy of your private keys and store them separately aswell.

that way you have paper back up, digital backup aswell as the live wallet being used

easiest, fastest and most reliable.. www.bitbargain.co.uk

but not always the cheapest. it depends on how many sellers are online to create some price competition

2 methods

1. auto block tor/proxy IP's to stop clones making a ridiculous amount of names. but dont record or log IP's just compare them at registration and block known tor/proxy addresses.
2. why need someone whole life story. a simple webcam/picture of the user holding up their username on a piece of paper should suffice.

but more important then members fee's what benefits/services/powers will this organisation have/give. and what salary will you earn from the fee's

im not affiliated with giftcoins at all and i am doing this just once as a bit of charity.. but anyways
https://blockchain.info/tx/57d691706a2decc77f74973f366f40819f773c520e4dcb5f4a94a4b51a379a30 - sent

although many people think that giftcoins is a fast and effective service. a upto 50% reduction in potential Bitcoin arklan could have got is a reason why the mainstream, non crypto, average joe would not want to get into bitcoin.

imagine someone invests $220.
this second bitstamp 138.33
this second giftcoin 157.83
$220 becomes $200.20 after jagoo's admin costs
they would have over 1.59BTC from bitstamp with a 2 day wire transfer delay
they would have over 1.45BTC from bitstamp with a same day cash deposit through bitinstant/moneygram
but only getting 1.26btc through giftcoins same day
which using bitstamps value is a loss of $46 worth of bitcoin. that is one hell of a convenience surcharge

dang.. so i think i read this right
so for $17.99 out of your paypal, they credited you with only $14.. not $15 which, when bitstamp was $116 giftcard was $137.71

giving you: 0.101BTC for $17.99 ((1btc/$137.31)*14)

where you could have got: 0.129.3BTC if you had $15 in bitstamp
where you could have got: 0.155.3BTC if you had $17.99 in bitstamp

29-55% difference...... ouch

even worse is that none of their valuations match anything close to the amounts it costs the user, the value available to be redeemed or the bitcoin they will end up with. and on top of that they don't send you a physical card.. just a free email with a code.(i would have expected 20-50% variance with manufacturing/delivery costs of a physical card included, but not for a email code)

if this is the true end result then giftcards are truly not a great service. infact i feel sorry for ya. give me your bitcoin address and purely because of this 29-50% profit grab giftcard have ripped you off with, ill send you 0.055 to get you to where giftcard should have if they had a proper business model.

when luke JR is involved the communities point of view is meaningless..

luke Jr is a known mental case who wants this his way or no way at all. thats why instead of relying on bitcoin.org as the central point for media relations. having multiple hubs available.

there are many countries out there and many businesses that may want their own idea of a spokesperson. thats why i planned to just let people who are not already famous have their chance to highlight themselves by making a video and then all of those businesses and other websites around the world which may have a press centre section can choose their own people as spokesmen.

using bitcoin.org is called centralisation... especially now its being run by the golden few...

so why even bother stressing yourself over their rules. they are just a hand full of individuals. their rules dont matter. the world is much bigger then luke Jr so just do what most others do, and ignore/avoid them.

instead help out by making a massive list of people that may want to be spokes people that think they will never get a chance. get them to make a little video. im not stating it has to be a mock TV interview or a tutorial, or a rigid set script. the community questions were just examples of things they may want to talk about to atleast get a better idea of the persons mindset.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=190192.0

not caring as in banks don't mind if your buying 2000 cans of baked beans or bitcoin, banks just want to know where and who the money is going too. i have a bank manager and thats what they said to me:
to keep logs of who is doing large payments and to fill out a sars report (which goes to serious organised crime agency not the bank, if theirs suspicions of a illegal use of funds) FSA have also confirmed this.
cheers for the correction on the london office, sorry i was checking up on several businesses at once. but british rules still apply. FSA are not abolished. and CDD is what is wrote in the UK/EU REGULATIONS not in the laymens leaflets which tries to be more internationally user friendly.

also using transferwises own quote


[1] regulators do take a stance.. on FIAT
[2] banks dont have to care about bitocin, banks are in the FIAT business not the cans of baked beans business so it doesnt matter what you buy with your FIAT, they jsut want to know where and with whom the FIAT ends up
[3] banks dont care, as long as they can follow the money (FIAT) trail
[4] hmmmmmmmmm big revealing point... the KYC rules are NOT new and not specifically tailored. KYC rules have been the same for many years. its only national media that has hyped it up as being new. which to me shows that transfer wise has not read the regulations fully to know this. but instead just read about it in newspapers. and why is it also revealing.. because as a irish company transfer wise is managed by FSA which does not use the term KYC. they use the term CDD (customer due diligence)
[5] banks know exactly what is expected of them. any amounts over $1000 in a smal period of time needs to have available tracking information.

transfer wise obviously didn't have enough knowledge of the rules or the information of exchanges to pass onto banks if the banks asked for details of "who is bitstamp"

everyone saying that satoshi dice is killing bitcoin by filling up the block size. in my opinion satoshi dice is the sandbox of the future.

when bitcoin becomes valued at thousands of dollars each, users will start transacting in satoshis, not whole coins. and because of the population increase within the community, there will be much more transactions.

so satoshidice is actually showing you what will happen in the future. and to find solutions that help small transactions flow freely. NOT be ignored or being priced out of being able to transact by having huge fee's in an attempt to stop these small transactions.

i have not limited it to say that those nominated cannot make videos. i have not set any goal posts or set any conditions that the only way the press will contact them is if they are firstly nominated through one website. and voted for by someguys single decision based on typing "ACK" on a certain page.
 you have set some limiting goalposts by suggesting that the only way though to a press page is through ACK ACK ACK your proposal.

there is more then one website in the world there is more then one language. so dont limit it. you just said apply the process to the existing roster....

well its your roster. your plan, so its upto you to apply it to YOUR roster.

otherwise, allow others who may not have the big wealth and big names, but do have a smart mind and a balanced point of view to make a video to show themselves off and allow the community to adopt them in whatever way they want.

i will not ACK your proposal as you have set the goalposts which is limiting anyone from applying, all the end result will be from your proposal is a select few well known guys. missing out on the wealth of knowledge and opinions that may be overlooked by your goalposts.

EDIT - seen your last reply
facepalm
when i read news stories i actually go forward and i contact the media to correct them where they go wrong and i suggest better names to interview in the future.

EG Amir taaki (homeless, bankrupt, ex-entrepeuner who loves to talk about hacking, gun control at bitcoin conferences more then bitcoin itself.. not be interviewed again. where as a few other select names that do talk in a nice smooth manner about bitcoin and the positive and legal future of the coin are mentioned to the media)

i dont rely on telling the media to go visit bitcoin.org to choose from the "golden few". if the media want to talk about merchant services i mention bitpay, it its payment gateways i mention bitinstant. if its exchanges i mention mtgox, if its the technical side of bitcoin its gavin.. there should be no limit to how many get to be the chosen few. but having atleast examples of how those that have not yet been chosen would actually respond infront of the camera, will help EVERYONE to have their favourites

this is not about what YOU want

the community want to see confident and smart people to represent bitcoin.

seems like YOU want just a couple of select few, one which you have already nominated.

my plan is that ignoring one websites personal desires, having a thread filled with a multitude of people all showing off their TV presence and allowing the bitcoin community to see who they like and to then themselves use those names they choose to be their advocate.

i have a website which will highlight some notable people i beleive will be good spokes people, and so do others have their own websites for their area's/interests.

imagine a guy in england that wants a handful of names to pick from to talk to the BBC in london, or channel4 up north.. wouldnt it be good to have lots of faces and examples to pick from to then have a nice varied selection, instead of just 4 americans.

now imagine someone in australia that wants local talent, wouldnt they also want a selection of names and video examples to pick who they favour that atleast knows and understands australian economy.

same again imagine it for russians, italians, israeli, thai's, chinese. the list goes on......

limiting it to a few select people is not truly covering the whole communities viewpoint. i do agree that there ought to be some standards that these representatives should have. but limiting it to just a handful of people or meeting a criteria that only you want is not the right way of doing it.

i suggest making a video for the simple reason, if they are going to be on TV then having a video is atleast a sandbox of what to expect they will say infront of a camera. that way there is no surprise.

just mentioning names because they are "big people" in the community means nothing.. everyone knows the name Pirate@40. so should we really be judging people purely on the wealth they hold and the popularity of their name?