My response to Wadhwa from the Washington Post article "'R.I.P. Bitcoin."

[SamusNi]

About this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/01/19/r-i-p-bitcoin-its-time-to-move-on/

Hello Wadhwa,

I read your article in the Washington Post with surprise.

I heard you talk many times before and you seemed like a fair guy.

However with this article, you just lost all your credibility, and just shows how little you know about bitcoin.

First of all, about Mike Hearn, he tried to impose on everybody bitcoin XT, which was a version of bitcoin intended to hijack the bitcoin core.

The community rejected him and his project, and because of this, he had the rage quit we all saw.

Also, just to show you how "Core developer" Mike Hearn was, you can see his contributions to the bitcoin protocol here: https://bitcoin.org/en/development

If you do a CTRL+F on that website, you will find Mike Hearn in the end of the list with 3 corrections, while top developers have 3000 and 1000, so this is just to show you how insignificant Mike Hearn is.

The block size increase will happen and it will be done by the Core developers consensus, inline with the community, not by one guy that wants to hijack bitcoin.

If you want to hear a valid opinion of what is going on in the bitcoin World:

https://medium.com/@bramcohen/whiny-ragequitting-cab164b1e88#.w7s7vid2j

Now regarding other comments you did about bitcoin, such as:

"Bitcoin was born with serious flaws."

Which flaws? the need for consensus for changes?

Decentralization?

Not being subject to Governments, laws, taxes?

"It was unregulated and provided anonymity, so it rapidly became a haven for drug dealers and anarchists."

My God, how stupid can one be to write such things. Let me ask you this: do you know what is the currency most used for Drug Trafficking and all the crime around the World? Do you? It's called U.S Dollar.

Why don't you make an article saying RIP U.S dollar, as almost ALL the crimes in the world, Billions, Trillions of U.S dollars are flowing in the crime market?

And you know what? The U.S dollar is anonymous too. If I give you a dollar bill in hand, no one will ever know when that dollar bill was transferred to you. Can you trace that? At least with bitcoin all transactions are written in the blockchain, can be verified by everyone. Transparency. What is the transparency of the U.S Dollar?

"A tiny committee of five core developers that controls the Bitcoin codebase has become the Star Chamber that guides the future of Bitcoin."

Those developers are aligned with the community and take decisions with a consensus in the community. Take them as the 5 ministers of bitcoin. If you look the the U.S government or any government, the guys on the top of the chain are also few.

Does that make all governments a failure?

" And, with the majority of Bitcoin being owned by the small group that started promoting it, it has been compared to a Ponzi scheme. "

By that view, the whole World is a ponzi scheme, as the top 1% own more than the rest 99%.

"Exchanges built on top of it also had severe security vulnerabilities."

Oh, sure. what about the $1 Billion dollar heist in the banking world?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-08-04/hackers-take-1-billion-a-year-from-company-accounts-banks-won-t-indemnify

I could write more, but to be honest you are not worth the time.

So good luck with your 10% ROI yearly on your S&P investments ;-) Ah, wait, I forgot everything is collapsing now. No worries, wait 10 more years and you may recover all your losses, with 1 to 10% ROI.

I'll stick to my bitcoins in the meantime, with a ROI of 38500 times since its creation.

You will swallow all your words about bitcoin, time will show you how history is built.

Enjoy the U.S Dollar.

Regards,
Samus.

[LiteCoinGuy]

i did not read it. iam too long here.

please add it to:

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/

[Kakmakr]

Samus, Well done. It would have been more beneficial if you could send that to the editor and other mainstream news sites to counter all this bullshit being spread on the internet about Bitcoin. When stuff like this gets posted, we should launch ourselves at these sources and counter these statements with full force.

If we sit back and do nothing, these people will walk over us and destroy the work we have done and the progress we have made. Everyone involved with Bitcoin should fight for this technology. Thank you very much for your little contribution. ^smile^

[MicroGuy]

I'm sorry, but I think you're wasting your time. This "journalist" isn't confused about Bitcoin. This is a paid "hit piece"! The writer just earned himself about 10 brownie points.

~~

While employed at Credit Suisse First Boston, the banking firm invested over $150 million dollars on a project Vivek Wadhwa was working on.

I see banker-controlled Coinbase has already jumped on the Bitcoin Classic bandwagon. Better steer clear of that disaster. Wake up community!

[avikz]

Excellent post. please pat your back on my behalf!

I think it should be published in a mainstream media as well.

Time will certainly unlock the true potential of bitcoin.

[MicroGuy]

Time will certainly unlock the true potential of bitcoin.

Wrong. It won't be time that unlocks anything, it will be the community waking up and seeing a duck for a duck. Bitcoin Classic is a HORRIBLE idea and if it starts to get any more traction, I think it could be lights out for Bitcoin. Bitcoin Classic will create division, brand confusion, and weakness across the board.

[watashi-kokoto]

Time will certainly unlock the true potential of bitcoin.

Wrong. It won't be time that unlocks anything, it will be the community waking up and seeing a duck for a duck. Bitcoin Classic is a HORRIBLE idea and if it starts to get any more traction, I think it could be lights out for Bitcoin. Bitcoin Classic will create division, brand confusion, and weakness across the board.

This post, ladies and gentlemen, is the truth.

Long live Satoshi Nakamoto!

[Rizky Aditya]

I wasn't bothered to read the article as soon as I saw the title. I know Bitcoin is not dead and people can say whatever they want.

[n2004al]

It is enough to read the first paragraph of the article to understand that the author of it is not neutral against bitcoin and the cryptos in general. He tell bullshits which serve to his aim to denigrate it or the world of cryptos in general. For example the expression "Now the cryptocurrency is fighting for survival." is totally a wrong one. This testify that him is totally ignorant in this field. I am telling to him to see the chart of the price of etherium only since the beginning of this month. The increase of its price is more than 80 percent in only two weeks. Higher in the percentage of the increase is even the price of Dash (but within a month). Fewer but yet in big increase is Monero. And so could even with other cryptos that I don't follow. Where is the crisis of cryptoworld? How is possible to be so irresponsible someone who pretend to have to do with Harvard?

[teddy5145]

Wow, this is a great counteract from that news actually
I hope Wadhwa read this post so he knew his mistakes and hopefuly apologize to the public (doubt it)
But from the looks of it you are one of the early adopters of bitcoin, am i right samus ?

[Karartma1]

Well done OP! The "journalist" is not going to read your answers but at least you made a nice review of his article which is going to stay here.
Bravo!

[arbitrage]

All those attack gonna make bitcoin stronger!
Forbidden fruit, are alway having a better taste.
It is evident someone trying to buy cheap maybe they expect 10$ per btc?

[Windpower]

Why are so many people hating on Bitcoin? First it was Mike Hearn and then now this. Screw these retarded guys.

[NorrisK]

I see banker-controlled Coinbase has already jumped on the Bitcoin Classic bandwagon. Better steer clear of that disaster. Wake up community!

If we think this way all the time, we will never get a fix for the block size issue. At one point, everybody will join a certain bandwagon, including Coinbase.

If we than say, coinbase is in, let's find a different solution, we are ofcourse going nowhere.

I think it is best to ignore this crap journalist, it is clear that he is just FUDding.

[teddy5145]

All those attack gonna make bitcoin stronger!
Forbidden fruit, are alway having a better taste.
It is evident someone trying to buy cheap maybe they expect 10$ per btc?

Well if they are trying to buy at that price they are late for it
$10 is so 2010, heck even the price is cheaper than that in 2010
And i don't think a news like that could drop the price from $380-ish straight to $10
These peoples are nuts

[jyakulis]

"Bitcoin was born with serious flaws.  It was unregulated and provided anonymity, so it rapidly became a haven for drug dealers and anarchists."

OMG best part of the article!

"It’s time to admit that the current Bitcoin needs to be scrapped and to take advantage of the innovations behind the technology that underlies Bitcoin, the blockchain. "

Holy crap, the way they repeat this over and over and over and over again. It's like someone else is saying it for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAkxR9T01pw