[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[elux]

Signed up. Confirmation email incoming?

[Boussac]

Bravo Gavin.
It was worth waiting the 24 of september  
This organization complements nicely a rather loose community of developers.

Although I hate to quote myself I speculated on this forum a month ago "Some kind of W3C-like organization to manage BIPs, including Google's sponsorship ?"
I was wrong about Google unless they join as platinum member and I could have thought of the linux foundation as a model more relevant than W3C at this stage of the bitcoin development.

You can count on my support as an individual member already.

[Severian]

Signed up. Confirmation email incoming?

I just suggested it to them. Maybe others might do the same?

[Piper67]

I agree this is a good idea, and have sent in my membership because over the last couple of years I've come to respect several of the main parties involved in this project.

That being said, how are you guys planning on not becoming the headquarters for Bitcoin? In other words, what kind of arms length systems are in place to distance yourselves (the foundation) from the thing itself (Bitcoin)?

[jimbobway]

lovebitcoins.org just got put out of business

[dadj]

This is exactly what Bitcoin needs - a legitimate corporate entity backed by members around the world to defend against the onslaught of propaganda that will inevitably come Bitcoins way. Signed up for life membership!

[SuperHakka]

How comes the bitcoin logo is nowheere to be seen on that webiste, you know the BTC

[Jan]

Signed up. Confirmation email incoming?

Same here. I guess they do it manually.

[Bitcoin Oz]

I will lol if silk road becomes a platinum member.

[Seal]

Thank you. This is a great milestone for us.

+1

Gavin, great work. In the interest of transparency, you might want to add in your OP that one of the uses of donations is to pay for your full time salary as a bitcoin developer. That in itself deserves credit and goes to show the dedication of the board members so far.

+1 to Mark for the first platinum membership too.

[proudhon]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  This is fantastic news and I'm happy to enthusiastically support this.  I'm super excited about the foundation.

[tpantlik]

Wow, great news.

How comes the bitcoin logo is nowheere to be seen on that webiste, you know the BTC

Maybe they will standartize it at first?

[World]

Thank you. This is a great milestone for us.

+1

Gavin, great work. In the interest of transparency, you might want to add in your OP that one of the uses of donations is to pay for your full time salary as a bitcoin developer. That in itself deserves credit and goes to show the dedication of the board members so far.

+1 to Mark for the first platinum membership too.

+1 Roger Ver has announced a significant donation to the Foundation as a way to get our budget launched

[bangers]

How comes the bitcoin logo is nowheere to be seen on that webiste, you know the BTC

Hopefully coz they realise it sucks

[Grouver (BtcBalance)]

It also worries me that you need to give away your anonymity to support this project.
Where will this precious data end up when shit hits the fan?

[The_Duke]

Q: Is this the infamous September Announcement?

Yes.

So the bitcoin foundation (which had nothing to do with founding bitcoin and created itself without involvement from the bitcoin community or its creator) gets a start as some incredibly overhyped Announcement (yeah, with a capital A apparently).
THIS is that big announcement that would bring more stability to bitcoin? A self proclaimed "bitcoin foundation" that on its own decides how to best help bitcoin?
To me, this just looks like a lot of e-peening by a bunch of people who on their own have become too invested in bitcoin and who are in effect decentralizing it by pulling to much attention and too much involvement onto themselves, thereby hindering the openness and freedom of bitcoin.
Why does something that is supposed to be uncontrolled and decentralized need a centralized body to control anything? What if the Bitcoin Foundation starts doing or saying things that a lot of bitcoin users feel is harmful to bitcoin? Can we replace the people in bitcoin foundation?

It will give the "outside world" (filled with evil bankers, corporations and goverments) a centralized point from which to influence bitcoin. (And whoever thinks they will influence it in a direction that is good for bitcoin is just being naive) They can now just talk to THE "Bitcoin Foundation", which happens to also include the major developers, the ones controlling the trademarks, etc.
Under the flag of "not for profit" bitcoin seems to get commercialized.

[Graet]

The industry pricing suggests that it is intended for "bitcoin industry", rather than "industry that happens to accept payment in bitcoin".  Considering the structure of the organization, the distinction seems like a reasonable one to make.

where do pools fit in this?
If mining is not a basic "industry" of Bitcoin - what is?
pools support the bulk of miners and thus do most of the verification of the transactions on the Bitcoin network - for all the Bitcoin users
0fee pools will have 0 chance of attaining silver membership - even most pools with fees run on margins that do not allow one off payments of 500BTC

I would like to be able to sign my registered business up as a corporate member, but simply cannot afford to.

Graeme Tee
Ozcoin pooled Mining Pty Ltd
ACN: 152 509 272

[Bitcoin Oz]

The industry pricing suggests that it is intended for "bitcoin industry", rather than "industry that happens to accept payment in bitcoin".  Considering the structure of the organization, the distinction seems like a reasonable one to make.

where do pools fit in this?
If mining is not a basic "industry" of Bitcoin - what is?
pools support the bulk of miners and thus do most of the verification of the transactions on the Bitcoin network - for all the Bitcoin users
0fee pools will have 0 chance of attaining silver membership - even most pools with fees run on margins that do not allow one off payments of 500BTC

I would like to be able to sign my registered business up as a corporate member, but simply cannot afford to.

Graeme Tee
Ozcoin pooled Mining Pty Ltd
ACN: 152 509 272

I think they should have had a mining rep on the board of governors and you would get my vote  

[Mushroomized]

Debating to sign up or not.

[Jan]

Q: Is this the infamous September Announcement?

Yes.

So the bitcoin foundation (which had nothing to do with founding bitcoin and created itself without involvement from the bitcoin community or its creator) gets a start as some incredibly overhyped Announcement (yeah, with a capital A apparently).
THIS is that big announcement that would bring more stability to bitcoin? A self proclaimed "bitcoin foundation" that on its own decides how to best help bitcoin?
To me, this just looks like a lot of e-peening by a bunch of people who on their own have become too invested in bitcoin and who are in effect decentralizing it by pulling to much attention and too much involvement onto themselves, thereby hindering the openness and freedom of bitcoin.
Why does something that is supposed to be uncontrolled and decentralized need a centralized body to control anything? What if the Bitcoin Foundation starts doing or saying things that a lot of bitcoin users feel is harmful to bitcoin? Can we replace the people in bitcoin foundation?

It will give the "outside world" (filled with evil bankers, corporations and goverments) a centralized point from which to influence bitcoin. (And whoever thinks they will influence it in a direction that is good for bitcoin is just being naive) They can now just talk to THE "Bitcoin Foundation", which happens to also include the major developers, the ones controlling the trademarks, etc.
Under the flag of "not for profit" bitcoin seems to get commercialized.

If you are worried about the direction of the Bitcoin Foundation and the members of the board you should join the foundation and let your vote count.