Care about Bitcoin? STAY AWAY from the "Bitcoin Fundation"

[MPOE-PR]

I am sorry, but this is a transvestite

The word you're looking for is travesty, but otherwise yes, this isn't going anywhere.

[Polvos]

What specifically could this foundation do if it was malicious that everybody's so worried about? So far all I can see is a superstituous fear of the word "centralization".

For a good start: The name.

The bitcoin foundation. They call themselves THE foundation, but they are not the founders of bitcoin. With the naming and the new public relations function they have selfassigned, they will be catching a lot of newbie attention. Now imagine they focus all the newbies in the premium companies services.

[casascius]

What specifically could this foundation do if it was malicious that everybody's so worried about? So far all I can see is a superstituous fear of the word "centralization".

For a good start: The name.

The bitcoin foundation. They call themselves THE foundation, but they are not the founders of bitcoin. With the naming and the new public relations function they have selfassigned, they will be catching a lot of newbie attention. Now imagine they focus all the newbies in the premium companies services.

Foundation does not mean being the inventor.  Its meaning is closer to the word "organization" or "institution".

[ChrisKoss]

First of all, let me start this by saying that your coins are fantastic . Now, I don't care how many hands are there to shake. Paypal will never like bitcoin. Visa will never like Bitcoin. The banks will never like Bitcoin. The ESTABLISHMENT will never like Bitcoin because they can't PROFIT from it, as they shouldn't. More over, Bitcoin is a direct threat to their bloodsucking structures they have in place. Let's not even mention inefficient and corrupt sovereign states like the US of A that need more and more tax to support the likes of their corporate pals.

Bitcoin will only be successful the day their community realizes that Bitcoin will NEVER be, and should NEVER be a mainstream product. This is why Satoshi was so particular about hiding his identity. He KNEW this. Perhaps it would refresh the memory's community to read the message Satoshi embedded on the genesis block.

This is like an ugly chick desperately begging for the popular guy to take her to prom. No matter how much make up, it won't fucking happen.

Perhaps I have a more orthodox view of what Bitcoin was intended to be, and what should be from the old (Satoshi) testament, but I firmly believe this.

Do the other people resistant to the Foundation agree with the above statement?  I couldn't disagree more:

- You don't see any profit opportunities for the financial system accepting Bitcoin?   Have you just not thought about it?  Bank transfers are a very expensive, cumbersome process.  The trust model for moving money can be simplified with irreversibility. Transparent transactions in the blockchain can let funds manage money in a completely transparent way (if desired/the market demands it). There are huge opportunities for making financial markets more streamlined and efficient with Bitcoin.  

- You seem really xenophobic. Bitcoins aren't only for gold bugs, or anarchists, or businessmen, or cryptographers, or hacktivists, or nerds, or housewives.  Trade is a great unifying force, and we shouldn't work to exclude people who are different from ourselves from using it, but rather we should encourage them to join our economy for everyone's benefit.

- I don't like credit card companies or Paypal.  But, would I be happy if they made a Bitcoin service?  Of course!  The more the merrier.  If you expect Bitcoin to succeed, you have to expect that the dinosaurs will try to jump on the bandwagon at some point.

- "The Establishment" is amorphous and constantly changing (much "the Bitcoin community").  Some of the big players will die while clinging to outdated business models, some will adapt, and some successful small guys will turn into big players themselves.  If you want Bitcoins' market cap to rise above a couple hundred million, there are necessarily going to be "Establishment" players that work with Bitcoin.  You can't have a trillion dollar economy that never interacts with any government anytime in the next 100 years: if you believe that you could, you're living in a libertarian fantasy world in your head.

- You don't think Bitcoin's should ever become mainstream?  I do.  I want Bitcoin to succeed and benefit as many people as possible.  Why don't you?

- "I have a more orthodox view of what Bitcoin was intended to be" - NOPE.  You have a more narrow view of what Bitcoin was intended to be, and I'm slightly offended that you think you can speak for Satoshi.

[justusranvier]

The bitcoin foundation. They call themselves THE foundation, but they are not the founders of bitcoin. With the naming and the new public relations function they have selfassigned, they will be catching a lot of newbie attention. Now imagine they focus all the newbies in the premium companies services.

That's (finally) something specific.

Danger #1: The Bitcoin Foundation could use it's position to provide preferrential advertising for favored businesses.

What else?

[Polvos]

What specifically could this foundation do if it was malicious that everybody's so worried about? So far all I can see is a superstituous fear of the word "centralization".

For a good start: The name.

The bitcoin foundation. They call themselves THE foundation, but they are not the founders of bitcoin. With the naming and the new public relations function they have selfassigned, they will be catching a lot of newbie attention. Now imagine they focus all the newbies in the premium companies services.

Foundation does not mean being the inventor.  Its meaning is closer to the word "organization" or "institution".

Ok. As you know, english is not my native language. Anyway the only "organization" related to bitcoin is the validating network itself. The bitcoin is a economic tool. The same way we don't have a Mr hammer face or a Mr screwdriver face, we don't need a Mr bitcoin face.

[knight22]

As long as the protocol remains loyal for everything it brings to us actually, as long as it remains 100% transparent and as long we have the choice to chose which fork to follow if changes are occurring on the protocol, there is no way we should worry about bitcoin.

[BitcoinBug]

The bitcoin is a economic tool. The same way we don't have a Mr hammer face or a Mr screwdriver face, we don't need a Mr bitcoin face.

Maybe you don't, but some obviously do. And many of us appreciate it. It's all voluntary, what exactly is the problem? What is danger #2?

[Polvos]

The bitcoin is a economic tool. The same way we don't have a Mr hammer face or a Mr screwdriver face, we don't need a Mr bitcoin face.

Maybe you don't, but some obviously do. And many of us appreciate it. It's all voluntary, what exactly is the problem? What is danger #2?

This is danger number two:

Imagine some hackers ddos attack the bitcoin foundation server the same way they attacked bitpay. Would some newbie put some savings in a decentralized system where the selfdeclared "official face" is down a week because a ddos attack?. What if the premium companies offer some premium services to newbies through the foundation login page and the web is down for a week because the attack?.

Bitcoin is decentralized for a reason.

[BitcoinBug]

What if the premium companies offer some premium services to newbies through the foundation login page and the web is down for a week because the attack?.

What if, I'm asking you! A few new users less?
Bitcoin went from sub 1$ to 30$ and back to 2$ in less than a year and survived, yet you worry about few new users?

[Spekulatius]

What is danger #2?

Dangers I can think of:

#2: Important decisions a made away from the community and behind closed doors, influenced by those 2-out-of-5 seat-corporations that may only see their own gain and present >0.001% of bitcoin users

#3: The Julian Assange Effect

#4: Wealthy anonymous parties buy the majority of votes for upcoming polls

[Polvos]

What if, I'm asking you! A few new users less?

And a lot more bad reputation articles published. Just the kind of things the self declared bitcoin foundation tries to prevent.

[justusranvier]

Both of your concerns seem to relate to the possibility that the foundation will provide an advantage to some businesses and not others.

This is a vaild concern, but expressing it in the form of incoherent rants doesn't do anyone any good.

Why not try something like this in the main announcement thread:

"I'm worried that this foundation will use the Bitcoin name to provide an undue advantage to certain businesses at the expense of other businesses. As such I am not willing to support it until you can explain what steps you'll take to make sure this doesn't happen."

As a bonus, you could provide some constructive suggestions which, if adopted, would satisfy your concern.

[MPOE-PR]

The problem is what the problem always is: with a "foundation" inventing "standards" you lose out on the gnarly eccentric bits, which happen to be where value is born and innovation usually starts. With a foundation inventing standards you have some gates to keep the crap away.

There's no solution to this, both alternatives suck. The one valuable point, however, is that if MtGox gives its Bitcoin trademark to the foundation this will have been a net plus and a clear reason to have it: now there's somebody to keep the trademarks, somebody other than a major player.

[shad0wbitz]

I am sorry, but this is a transvestite

The word you're looking for is travesty, but otherwise yes, this isn't going anywhere.

Actually, the word I was looking for WAS transvestite

transvestite |transˈvesˌtīt, tranz-|
noun
a person, typically a man, who derives pleasure from dressing in clothes appropriate to the opposite sex.
DERIVATIVES
transvestism |-ˌtizəm|noun,
transvestist |-tist|noun( dated),
transvestitism |-tiˌtizəm|noun
ORIGIN 1920s: from German Transvestit, from Latin trans- ‘across’ + vestire ‘clothe.’

[shad0wbitz]

Do the other people resistant to the Foundation agree with the above statement?  I couldn't disagree more:

- You don't see any profit opportunities for the financial system accepting Bitcoin?   Have you just not thought about it?  Bank transfers are a very expensive, cumbersome process.  The trust model for moving money can be simplified with irreversibility. Transparent transactions in the blockchain can let funds manage money in a completely transparent way (if desired/the market demands it). There are huge opportunities for making financial markets more streamlined and efficient with Bitcoin.  

- You seem really xenophobic. Bitcoins aren't only for gold bugs, or anarchists, or businessmen, or cryptographers, or hacktivists, or nerds, or housewives.  Trade is a great unifying force, and we shouldn't work to exclude people who are different from ourselves from using it, but rather we should encourage them to join our economy for everyone's benefit.

- I don't like credit card companies or Paypal.  But, would I be happy if they made a Bitcoin service?  Of course!  The more the merrier.  If you expect Bitcoin to succeed, you have to expect that the dinosaurs will try to jump on the bandwagon at some point.

- "The Establishment" is amorphous and constantly changing (much "the Bitcoin community").  Some of the big players will die while clinging to outdated business models, some will adapt, and some successful small guys will turn into big players themselves.  If you want Bitcoins' market cap to rise above a couple hundred million, there are necessarily going to be "Establishment" players that work with Bitcoin.  You can't have a trillion dollar economy that never interacts with any government anytime in the next 100 years: if you believe that you could, you're living in a libertarian fantasy world in your head.

- You don't think Bitcoin's should ever become mainstream?  I do.  I want Bitcoin to succeed and benefit as many people as possible.  Why don't you?

- "I have a more orthodox view of what Bitcoin was intended to be" - NOPE.  You have a more narrow view of what Bitcoin was intended to be, and I'm slightly offended that you think you can speak for Satoshi.

Chris, all due respect, you must be one of those people that believe we still leave in a democracy with officials elected by the people that work for the people, and unless banks and credit cards are races, I don't see how I am a xenophobe.

Why would the banks, visa etc give two rat's dicks about Bitcoin when they are robbing fees way higher than Bitcoin will ever make them? It is very simple: Banks, VISA, etc. are a mafia/cartel that have the golden cow tied to their backyard post. Why innovate? Why embrace ANYTHING else? Do you think nowadays with the technologies we have they couldn't, for example, use something else than SWIFT for international wire transfers that was designed to be transmitted ver TELEX lines?

The answer is clear: They make too much fucking money. They don't want to change anything. Not only that, but they will resist and fight any change or innovation that prevents them to keep robbing people.

[casascius]

Why would the banks, visa etc give two rat's dicks about Bitcoin when they are robbing fees way higher than Bitcoin will ever make them? It is very simple: Banks, VISA, etc. are a mafia/cartel that have the golden cow tied to their backyard post. Why innovate? Why embrace ANYTHING else? Do you think nowadays with the technologies we have they couldn't, for example, use something else than SWIFT for international wire transfers that was designed to be transmitted ver TELEX lines?

The answer is clear: They make too much fucking money. They don't want to change anything. Not only that, but they will resist and fight any change or innovation that prevents them to keep robbing people.

Being indifferent is quite a different thing than actively attacking something.  Are the banks and Visa actively attacking the internet because it threatens their stronghold on using TELEX lines to do bank wires?

The main benefactor of the current banking system's flaws are our politicians and our central bankers.  Money printing enables politicians to spend other people's money with less accountability, and central bankers get to profit off of all of the inefficiency of the system, and it all works because the public at large doesn't understand how it happens.  But I don't think that means every banker and every judge, mayor, and tax collector is individually sworn to undermine anything and everything that changes the status quo - they are just everyday people doing their jobs as trained, and might not be as hostile as you seem to suggest.

Visa could still have their lucrative business model even if they transacted in bitcoins instead of dollars.  It works for euros, yen, and every other popular unit of account.  Bitcoin is no different.  I know Visa isn't considered all that popular here, but they do add value in the eyes of many beholders that a straight Bitcoin client does not and never will replace (such as the ability for customers to do chargebacks, which you may not value, but many other customers do, and which is why they don't mind paying 2-3% extra for the privilege).  Visa could legitimately and profitably embrace Bitcoin and never see a reason to fight it.

Having a Bitcoin Foundation puts us one step closer to it being plausible that Visa might actually consider Bitcoin a currency worth adding to their platform.  It's a long shot and may not happen any time soon, but given that history spans a very, very long time, and a lot can happen in such a time, so spans the future.

[Polvos]

Having a Bitcoin Foundation puts us one step closer to it being plausible that Visa might actually consider Bitcoin a currency worth adding to their platform.

And who cares? Why do we need that? If I want Visa managing my money I will search for credit cards in some bank. Let me be clear about this madness: we don't beg to some major banking or payment system to paternalisticly accept us. In a near future we will have the power not because having some public hands to shake, but having a large userbase.

[jgarzik]

Having a Bitcoin Foundation puts us one step closer to it being plausible that Visa might actually consider Bitcoin a currency worth adding to their platform.  It's a long shot and may not happen any time soon, but given that history spans a very, very long time, and a lot can happen in such a time, so spans the future.

Absolutely.  That's a bit of what I just pointed out in "My rambling bitcoin mini-manifesto."

[sippsnapp]

For now as i see this foundation venture talks, its a catchy name for a venture, and of course we are in a free market with competition as some niches are involved with decent amount of money.
IF its a money making model there will be competitors.