Coinbase sponsors two Bitcoin developers!

[Wind_FURY]

Why would Coinbase sponsor CORE DEVELOPERS to put malicious code to the network that enriches them? That would be very stupid and laughable.

The idea is not to put malicious code in the network. I doubt Coinbase would try something so silly.

But Coinbase, or any other company who makes money with bitcoin, could manipulate their employers ("core developers") to create codes which would benefit coinbase.

Or give coinbase an advantage over other companies. Or make exchanges more profitable than they are now.

It is hard to tell now what they are planning and how would they achieve any gain, but they certainly could try.

Bitcoin follows BIP, Bitcoin Improvement Proposal.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0001

The BIP process begins with a new idea for Bitcoin. Each potential BIP must have a champion -- someone who writes the BIP using the style and format described below, shepherds the discussions in the appropriate forums, and attempts to build community consensus around the idea. The BIP champion (a.k.a. Author) should first attempt to ascertain whether the idea is BIP-able. Posting to the bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org mailing list (and maybe the Development & Technical Discussion forum) is the best way to go about this.

The process is public, and transparent. Do you believe Coinbase could co-opt some of the Core developers, and manipulate the community to accept a Coinbase-BIP? Then the BIP system failed, what would be a better process to replace BIP?

Accepting (as in listed on https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/) isn't that hard since there are 10 BIP which aimed to increase block size through hard-fork (BIP 100 - 109), but to make community use or activate it are totally different matter.

I meant "to be considered as acceptable" and be merged, then activated.

For instance a Core developer funded by Coinbase, suddenly authored a proposal for developing sharding in Bitcoin.

[Wind_FURY]

I meant "to be considered as acceptable" and be merged, then activated.

For instance a Core developer funded by Coinbase, suddenly authored a proposal for developing sharding in Bitcoin.

That would be very difficult considering Bitcoin community is relative conservative. Even less controvesial BIP such as BIP 151 which aims to encrypt communication between nodes isn't implemented until this day.

Or it could also be sharding isn't a truly feasible way for scaling Bitcoin. Either way, I believe the fear, near FUD, behind Coinbase's move to fund Core developers is over the top.

[Karartma1]

I don't like to get this into politics however ETFbitcoin correctly said this is happening because bitcoiners, especially old ones, are conservative which in my humble opinion is good: I believe if bitcoin is here since 2009 after all that happened is due to the fact that its revolutionary march has been tough, smart and... slow  Like water carving a rock.
We all know how money can be used to change the direction of things. 

[Wind_FURY]

I don't like to get this into politics however ETFbitcoin correctly said this is happening because bitcoiners, especially old ones, are conservative which in my humble opinion is good: I believe if bitcoin is here since 2009 after all that happened is due to the fact that its revolutionary march has been tough, smart and... slow  Like water carving a rock.
We all know how money can be used to change the direction of things. 

I believe the Core developers just want the network to run for as long as it can, and scale out for as long as it possibly can, and be a robust multi-generational protocol for money for the internet.

Running Bitcoin Core is already "heavy" for most ordinary/"non-power" users. It would be better if Bitcoin's hardware requirements remained the same, and let the cheapest hardware available catch up.

[hulla]

Firstly, its good that coinbase sponsored two Bitcoin developers because this is what the community lacks back in the year 2016 and it will be good if we see more big crypto exchange site doing the same thing rather than just enriching their own pocket only. However, you guys are just aware of recent developers sponsored by coinbase cause they have been supporting new innovative crypto projects long ago.

[Wind_FURY]

I don't like to get this into politics however ETFbitcoin correctly said this is happening because bitcoiners, especially old ones, are conservative which in my humble opinion is good

Honestly it depends on your ideology. For example, i wouldn't say conservative on Bitcoin is 100% good.

It would be better if Bitcoin's hardware requirements remained the same, and let the cheapest hardware available catch up.

As cheap as Raspberry Pi 0 which costs $5?

For a technical user to build a machine from scratch, that would do. But costs go higher once you learn that an 1TB SSD, more powerful hardware, and more bandwidth are required to run a full node effortlessly. Plus I'm not talking about pruned nodes. More archival nodes, and make the Bitcoin blockchain more redundant.

In 5 years the hardware for the current requirements will be cheaper, and more available to more people all over the world.

[pawanjain]

Great news from Coinbase that will sposnsor two Bitcoin core developers with first Crypto Community Fund grants.
Bitcoin started as open source without any initial funds and it is amazing that it survived and thrived for so many years, but new developers and projects are always good to have.

Example projects they will be supporting:

- Direct contributions to Bitcoin Core (e.g., improving testing, fuzzing, bug fixes, improvements)
- Significant code and/or Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) review
- Contributor tooling (e.g., bitcoinacks.com, which is open source)
- Bitcoin Core libraries and tools (e.g., libsecp256k1)
- Improvement to testing (e.g., fuzz testing, functional tests)

Source: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-will-sponsor-two-bitcoin-core-developers-with-first-crypto-community-fund-grants-cf55a3a520a3

If you are Bitcoin Core developer you can apply or suggest someone HERE

Good move from Coinbase and I expect other crypto related companies to follow their example, and we want to see more interesting development around Bitcoin.

Wow this sounds amazing. Contributing to bitcoin core itself is like a privilege and getting funded for it is like a bonus.
I feel happy for those developers as they are getting what they deserve for their efforts and time contributing towards bitcoin core.
I have also started walking on the path towards becoming a bitcoin core developer.
I have not started building any code yet since I am making my base strong by understanding the technicals of bitcoin.
I hope some day I will be able to give my contribution for the bitcoin community.

keep it up but know that you don't need deep understanding of the bitcoin technology to make good contribution to the open source community. for example a simple bug report is also a great contribution because it helps developers improve their code.

Yeah I know that a simple bug report or a simple code change would also be considered as a contribution but I am planning on to dive deep into bitcoin core.
This is why I thought of getting the basics well before I my contribution.

[BrewMaster]

Wow this sounds amazing. Contributing to bitcoin core itself is like a privilege and getting funded for it is like a bonus.
I feel happy for those developers as they are getting what they deserve for their efforts and time contributing towards bitcoin core.
I have also started walking on the path towards becoming a bitcoin core developer.
I have not started building any code yet since I am making my base strong by understanding the technicals of bitcoin.
I hope some day I will be able to give my contribution for the bitcoin community.

keep it up but know that you don't need deep understanding of the bitcoin technology to make good contribution to the open source community. for example a simple bug report is also a great contribution because it helps developers improve their code.

[Wind_FURY]

Wow this sounds amazing. Contributing to bitcoin core itself is like a privilege and getting funded for it is like a bonus.
I feel happy for those developers as they are getting what they deserve for their efforts and time contributing towards bitcoin core.
I have also started walking on the path towards becoming a bitcoin core developer.
I have not started building any code yet since I am making my base strong by understanding the technicals of bitcoin.
I hope some day I will be able to give my contribution for the bitcoin community.

Start a blog in Medium, and please share your progress/development as a Bitcoin developer. It might inspire ordinary, non-technical people like me. Hahaha.

You can also get yourself added in this list, and accept donation from the community, https://bitcoindevlist.com

[pawanjain]

Wow this sounds amazing. Contributing to bitcoin core itself is like a privilege and getting funded for it is like a bonus.
I feel happy for those developers as they are getting what they deserve for their efforts and time contributing towards bitcoin core.
I have also started walking on the path towards becoming a bitcoin core developer.
I have not started building any code yet since I am making my base strong by understanding the technicals of bitcoin.
I hope some day I will be able to give my contribution for the bitcoin community.

Start a blog in Medium, and please share your progress/development as a Bitcoin developer. It might inspire ordinary, non-technical people like me. Hahaha.

You can also get yourself added in this list, and accept donation from the community, https://bitcoindevlist.com

That's a good idea. I will soon start writing blogs on medium and share my progress towards bitcoin development.
This won't be a good time to add myself for a donation since I believe I haven't done much yet for the community.
I will let people recognize myself a bit and then in future I might add myself up on the list.
Till then let the other developers get paid for their efforts 

[Karartma1]

I don't like to get this into politics however ETFbitcoin correctly said this is happening because bitcoiners, especially old ones, are conservative which in my humble opinion is good

Honestly it depends on your ideology. For example, i wouldn't say conservative on Bitcoin is 100% good.

You see it's not about any ideology: the way it is now bitcoin works amazingly well. It does what it says since 11 years which is quite a great accomplishment having had to fight 24/7 from January 3rd 2009. I believe it is a robust protocol developed by some of the best minds on Earth.
Taking a conservative approach allowed the protocol and the network to grow in strength and resilience.
Whatever the word conservative means in all this I actually do not care so long as bitcoin works like this.
To conclude, I truly hope this move of sponsoring bitcoin devs it is what it is, only support nothing else.

[Wind_FURY]

Wow this sounds amazing. Contributing to bitcoin core itself is like a privilege and getting funded for it is like a bonus.
I feel happy for those developers as they are getting what they deserve for their efforts and time contributing towards bitcoin core.
I have also started walking on the path towards becoming a bitcoin core developer.
I have not started building any code yet since I am making my base strong by understanding the technicals of bitcoin.
I hope some day I will be able to give my contribution for the bitcoin community.

Start a blog in Medium, and please share your progress/development as a Bitcoin developer. It might inspire ordinary, non-technical people like me. Hahaha.

You can also get yourself added in this list, and accept donation from the community, https://bitcoindevlist.com

That's a good idea. I will soon start writing blogs on medium and share my progress towards bitcoin development.
This won't be a good time to add myself for a donation since I believe I haven't done much yet for the community.
I will let people recognize myself a bit and then in future I might add myself up on the list.
Till then let the other developers get paid for their efforts 

You can also watch achow coding in real time in his Twitch channel, https://twitch.tv/videos/768401215

Start asking for advice there, I believe you can also make a donation.

I don't like to get this into politics however ETFbitcoin correctly said this is happening because bitcoiners, especially old ones, are conservative which in my humble opinion is good

Honestly it depends on your ideology. For example, i wouldn't say conservative on Bitcoin is 100% good.

You see it's not about any ideology: the way it is now bitcoin works amazingly well. It does what it says since 11 years which is quite a great accomplishment having had to fight 24/7 from January 3rd 2009. I believe it is a robust protocol developed by some of the best minds on Earth.

Taking a conservative approach allowed the protocol and the network to grow in strength and resilience.
Whatever the word conservative means in all this I actually do not care so long as bitcoin works like this.
To conclude, I truly hope this move of sponsoring bitcoin devs it is what it is, only support nothing else.

If the Core developers believed that it was better to experiment with "features", then I believe Bitcoin would have already forked before the Bitcoin Cash scam.

[Karartma1]

I don't like to get this into politics however ETFbitcoin correctly said this is happening because bitcoiners, especially old ones, are conservative which in my humble opinion is good

Honestly it depends on your ideology. For example, i wouldn't say conservative on Bitcoin is 100% good.

You see it's not about any ideology: the way it is now bitcoin works amazingly well. It does what it says since 11 years which is quite a great accomplishment having had to fight 24/7 from January 3rd 2009. I believe it is a robust protocol developed by some of the best minds on Earth.
Taking a conservative approach allowed the protocol and the network to grow in strength and resilience.
Whatever the word conservative means in all this I actually do not care so long as bitcoin works like this.
To conclude, I truly hope this move of sponsoring bitcoin devs it is what it is, only support nothing else.

If the Core developers believed that it was better to experiment with "features", then I believe Bitcoin would have already forked before the Bitcoin Cash scam.

I think I got your point but I fail to see how that is connected with what I wanted to point out: actually do you know what? More than developers now we need people to fight into the real world where bitcoin battles every day. We do not need more devs, we need more nodes.
The network must be able to rapidly broadcast blocks to all nodes, right? Let's sponsor them, not developers

[pawanjain]

I don't like to get this into politics however ETFbitcoin correctly said this is happening because bitcoiners, especially old ones, are conservative which in my humble opinion is good

Honestly it depends on your ideology. For example, i wouldn't say conservative on Bitcoin is 100% good.

You see it's not about any ideology: the way it is now bitcoin works amazingly well. It does what it says since 11 years which is quite a great accomplishment having had to fight 24/7 from January 3rd 2009. I believe it is a robust protocol developed by some of the best minds on Earth.
Taking a conservative approach allowed the protocol and the network to grow in strength and resilience.
Whatever the word conservative means in all this I actually do not care so long as bitcoin works like this.
To conclude, I truly hope this move of sponsoring bitcoin devs it is what it is, only support nothing else.

If the Core developers believed that it was better to experiment with "features", then I believe Bitcoin would have already forked before the Bitcoin Cash scam.

I think I got your point but I fail to see how that is connected with what I wanted to point out: actually do you know what? More than developers now we need people to fight into the real world where bitcoin battles every day. We do not need more devs, we need more nodes.
The network must be able to rapidly broadcast blocks to all nodes, right? Let's sponsor them, not developers

You don't need developers ?

If it weren't for the developers then bitcoin would not have been where it is today.
Even today the source code for bitcoin core has so many things to be improvised that the developers themselves want more developers to start contributing towards the bitcoin core source code.
Not every developer thinks in the same way and that's why many developers are needed so that together with their creative minds they can improvise the source code so much that bitcoin can be scalable in future.

I agree that many nodes are also needed as it will make the network stronger but that doesn't mean we don't need the developers anymore bud.
Both are needed as they both are important for the bitcoin network.

[Wind_FURY]

I don't like to get this into politics however ETFbitcoin correctly said this is happening because bitcoiners, especially old ones, are conservative which in my humble opinion is good

Honestly it depends on your ideology. For example, i wouldn't say conservative on Bitcoin is 100% good.

You see it's not about any ideology: the way it is now bitcoin works amazingly well. It does what it says since 11 years which is quite a great accomplishment having had to fight 24/7 from January 3rd 2009. I believe it is a robust protocol developed by some of the best minds on Earth.
Taking a conservative approach allowed the protocol and the network to grow in strength and resilience.
Whatever the word conservative means in all this I actually do not care so long as bitcoin works like this.
To conclude, I truly hope this move of sponsoring bitcoin devs it is what it is, only support nothing else.

If the Core developers believed that it was better to experiment with "features", then I believe Bitcoin would have already forked before the Bitcoin Cash scam.

I think I got your point but I fail to see how that is connected with what I wanted to point out:

I got your original point, and it's the same standpoint that I've been pointing out in many of my posts. But I was merely pointing out another standpoint, which I believe is also connected to your original point.

The "conservative" design decisons made by the Core developers, guarantees a robust, multi-generational-protocol. Integrating new "features", like "sharding" or features as simple as "8MB blocks" would require a hard fork, which not only risks of splitting the network, it might also break Bitcoin.

actually do you know what? More than developers now we need people to fight into the real world where bitcoin battles every day. We do not need more devs, we need more nodes.
The network must be able to rapidly broadcast blocks to all nodes, right? Let's sponsor them, not developers

We need more nodes, but I don't believe sponsoring people who run nodes is a good idea. You should run a full node for yourself, because you want to validate your own transactions.

[Karartma1]

@Wind_FURY Alright, now I am with you there. You could have been more specific 
@pawanjain Before posting crap read carefully as I have never said that we don't need developers.

You don't need developers ?

You maybe right on this one: I personally do not need developers, Bitcoin does. 

I think I got your point but I fail to see how that is connected with what I wanted to point out: actually do you know what? More than developers now we need people to fight into the real world where bitcoin battles every day. We do not need more devs, we need more nodes.

There are various bitcoin software that needs developeror could see improvement (e.g. improving Electrum UI/UX)

Electrum is a wallet. We have plenty of them out there. Better having devs focused on core development.

[BrewMaster]

Electrum is a wallet. We have plenty of them out there. Better having devs focused on core development.

we actually have very few wallets that deserve to be called a "bitcoin wallet". many of them are closed source, poorly written, buggy, lack features,...
you also seem to be ignoring that electrum is being used by a great percentage of total bitcoin users. i dare say there are more people using electrum than there are running bitcoin core.

[pawanjain]

@pawanjain Before posting crap read carefully as I have never said that we don't need developers.

I didn't mean to offend you in any way bud but you had clearly said in your post that "We do not need more devs, we need more nodes."
This is what I wanted to point out that we need both of them to make the network stronger.
Everyone have their own perspective and I just gave my opinion on making the bitcoin network stronger.

I think I got your point but I fail to see how that is connected with what I wanted to point out: actually do you know what? More than developers now we need people to fight into the real world where bitcoin battles every day. We do not need more devs, we need more nodes.
The network must be able to rapidly broadcast blocks to all nodes, right? Let's sponsor them, not developers

[Wind_FURY]

@Wind_FURY Alright, now I am with you there. You could have been more specific 

You were also posting a contradictory statement by saying that you want more nodes to "rapidly broadcast blocks" around in network. You actually want fewer nodes.