How can the Bitcoin Foundation best help Bitcoin? From New Exec Director

[BruceFenton]

Hi,

The Board just appointed me as the new Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation.

The organization has had its fair share of challenges but is here to stay and we all want to work hard to have it be as valuable as possible to Bitcoin.

Please share your advice, thoughts and ideas.

Some things that I'm planning to focus on is to increase decentralization, making use of crowd funding for projects, use more volunteers and member engagement and to focus on high impact, low cost activities such as a speakers bureau and educational meetings.

I'd love to hear constructive thoughts that we can use to make plans going forward.

[ashour]

My advice to the bitcoin foundation is to invest more in marketing. Bitcoin lacks marketing and that's its still not gone mainstream, the bitcoin foundation needs more members with business skills that can "sell" the bitcoin idea. I would suggest that half of the bitcoin foundation funds to be invested in marketing teams, pr team , marketing deals and etc. Try to engage popular mainstream apps/sites to aceept and adopt bitcoin. Bitcoin lacks in marketing and this needs to be fixed.

[Prosperityforall]

Make a bitcoin foundation exchange or something similar, fund the core developers from the profits.

The bitcoin foundation does not need to represent bitcoin, it has failed doing so horribly, so its best to do the only thing it has ever succeeded in doing, funding the core devs.

[xDan]

> making use of crowd funding for projects

If the BF somehow spearheaded crowdfunding of some amount of core dev? That would be inspiring. Rather than its pot of money going to dev directly, instead going to raise awareness of crowdfunding campaigns. Meta-funding.

[SpanishSoldier]

Looks like they found leadership in you after organizing Satoshi Roundtable.

Do you understand that it is simply a hunt for deep pockets ?

[Cruxer]

How can the Bitcoin Foundation best help Bitcoin? From New Exec Director

By me, try not to make Bitcoin bad press, as your organisation did several times.
After that, anything is value added to Bitcoin case.

Good luck!

[Alley]

Marketing.  Need to educate people that its not for criminals.  Need to have merchants that accept it give a discount so the people have a reason to use it over a credit card.  

[JayCoDon]

Get the finances in order, focus in one a few projects rather than everything, and help develop the brand of bitcoin. I need businesses to know that it is a viable way of making overseas payments, paying vendors, etc.

[xDan]

Marketing.  Need to educate people that its not for criminals.

+1, goddamit all that "pedo" news over the last day needs to be countered.

Need some media friendly examples of the good uses of Bitcoin. I can imagine some kind of videoblog/series. "Following Bitcoin around the world!" Heartwarming interview with family in [wherever] using it for cheaper remittances. Patrick Byrne telling the world how much he's saving on payment processing fees. Guy from China using it in import/export. Web dev in [some place PayPal hates] being hired by somebody in the US. Etc.

Propaganda, propaganda!

[newIndia]

I think you may follow the model of Y-combinator. Invest in different promising bitcoin startups across the globe and hold a share of them. Banks do not help bitcoin startups, but you can and this will give you long term return which may be used to fund core development and other educational activities across the globe.

Personally, I would love to see a bitcoin conference organized by The Bitcoin Foundation in India. If you need help in contacting the bigwigs of Indian bitcoin community, then I may help you.

[ed_teech]

Attract money into the ecosystem. Mining produces too much coins, makes a supply surplus.

[QuestionAuthority]

You have your own forum, go back there and cheerlead. If you want to drum up new contributors/donors to TBF have a bake sale. Most of the people on this forum are Bitcoin users and enthusiasts not businessmen looking for a quick buck. TBF has been too polluted and too U.S. centric since its formation. If Mahatma Gandhi crawled out of his grave to run TBF I still wouldn't have anything to do with them.

[RodeoX]

A few interesting ideas here.  And thank you Bruce for opening it up to the larger community.

[ashour]

I think you may follow the model of Y-combinator. Invest in different promising bitcoin startups across the globe and hold a share of them. Banks do not help bitcoin startups, but you can and this will give you long term return which may be used to fund core development and other educational activities across the globe.

Personally, I would love to see a bitcoin conference organized by The Bitcoin Foundation in India. If you need help in contacting the bigwigs of Indian bitcoin community, then I may help you.

I agree, the bitcoin foundation should help and embrace  bitcoin startups and help them grow. More bitcoin  companies will help to grow the bitcoin eco system.

[the joint]

My advice would be to focus on transparency, transparency, and more transparency.  The Foundation, in my opinion, is not necessary, and I certainly don't trust it to avoid self-serving interests.

I don't think the Foundation will do much of anything, nor do I think it's really done much of anything to this point.  I don't see any reason why the entire community shouldn't be able to review, for example, meeting minutes, etc.

Basically, the Foundation comes off as being a 'Good ol' Boys' club.  I do not currently view the foundation as serving any important or necessary purpose.  Maybe transparency could convince me otherwise.

[Last of the V8s]

How can you help the sun?
How can you help gravity?
Like bitcoin, these things do not need help.
Help yourself and get out fast.

[DooMAD]

If the Foundation is supposed to be an advocacy/campaigning/marketing/lobbying entity, try to be seen doing more of that.  And try to do it in a way that's as open and transparent as the blockchain itself.  Publish more of what you're doing on social media.  Show the world that you're actually getting the message out there.  To most of us, the Foundation has been practically invisible apart from the more negative headlines they seem to have attracted up to this point.  Best of luck in trying to turn it around, but I think it's going to be a tough challenge.

Basically, the Foundation comes off as being a 'Good ol' Boys' club.  

I'll echo this sentiment.  Up to this point it has come across as reclusive and even somewhat shady at times.  I hope this will be a turning point and you can claw back some credibility.

[Last of the V8s]

Bitcoin Association
Bitcoinassociation.Org

-from your current sig.

what's this other/same thing you founded with Buterin et al.?

[PolarPoint]

The bitcoin foundation should promote bitcoin globally, help bitcoin startups. The best way is to have regional branches of the foundation with information on local law and regulations.

[NyeFe]

More regular meetups and hackathons, needs to be created in at least 3 different cities of every country annually. We need to specifically target developers and entrepreneurs, because they will be the ones who develop and market Bitcoin related services to consumers, which will consequently attract more users to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

If you're using funds to target users, instead of funding Bitcoin based startups or marketing to developers, what do you really expect the user to do with the knowledge? It's like educating a consumer about the TCP/IP protocol. Yes the user can download a Bitcoin client and send or receive funds if they're thought how to, but why would they do it? and why should they, if there's easier and less complicated alternatives such as PayPal or Skrill.

Educational applications for computer science, specifically targeting cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin) needs to be created and readily available for educational institutes. We need to have more software and algorithmic building kits available for students, which could be used to teach them about developing Bitcoin services, and it's advantages.