Part of the forum's mission is to support the Bitcoin ecosystem as a whole. To this end, I'm happy to announce that the forum is a sponsor of the
Montreal Scaling Bitcoin Conference, which will discuss Bitcoin's max block size issues from an academic and technical point of view. The first conference is focused on
requirements: what we want Bitcoin to do, what is necessary for Bitcoin to continue functioning, etc. Specific proposals will not be considered at this conference, but will be considered at the later Hong Kong conference. This event will not be a debate, no decisions will be made, and it will not be political: it'll be entirely technology-focused.
Since the forum is a sponsor, I received two free tickets. I can't attend, so I'll probably give these tickets away to forum users. You still have to pay for your own travel and lodging, so this is really just a $150 discount to a much larger expense. If you're interested in these tickets, please explain in this thread why you would be
useful at the conference. (Don't PM me.) I might decide not to give these tickets to anyone in this thread, though.
If you have a relevant academic background, the Conference might cover your expenses partially or completely. You should contact them about that.
Thank you for the opportunity!
I am currently on the fence about showing up but a chance to avoid ticket expense would be a huge incentive to make it work. (especially seeing as prices are set to increase tomorrow)
I have been pretty vocal about the block size issue in the threads here on btctalk, reddit and twitter as they are really my only way to vent and air out my opinion on this subject. I live 2 hours away from Montreal in my part of town is.. inexistent. I was very curious about the event when it got announced but undecided on my ability to make it. I've never had the chance to meet fellow "bitcoiners" and I do consider I could bring some valuable thoughts to the table.
My background is not technical, I am not a developer. My interest in Bitcoin spawns mainly from its socio-economic aspect and especially its sound economic principles. Despite that my general interest and curiosity have, I believe, allowed me to shape a clear picture of the incentives and different dynamics at stakes in the block size debate.
I have been a loud opponent of XT & BIP101, not for their poor technological design and assumptions but for the political grounds they hail from. Fortunately I am happy to read the intent of the conference is to serve a productive outcome and that the boogeyman of "governance" should largely be ignored.
To ask ourselves what we'd like Bitcoin to do is indeed a challenge given the crowd of people each claiming their own use case. I think it should be important during this conference that we observe and consider what Bitcoin does well, not what we'd like it to be. When Satoshi described Bitcoin as internet "cash" what exactly did he have in mind? What is the true breakthrough from Bitcoin's white paper? How exactly have we gotten here and what were the driving forces? Of course these are very hard questions given the tendency for everyone to each interpret facts their own way according to their individual experience and history with Bitcoin.
If you ask me Bitcoin is about privacy and financial freedom. It promises to reinvent our economic lives and general human governance
from the ground up. I am hoping we can build on top of its decentralized protocol an entirely new financial system by reducing trust as much as possible at the core and from there allow an ecosystem to grow around a whole decentralization spectrum. I don't believe it can achieve this in its current form and I am convinced that some of the tools and ideas I have seen shared by some of the very people that should be present at the workshop are key to enable the future I envision.
For this reason it would be an absolute pleasure to have a chance to discuss and develop together with the other participant our understanding of Bitcoin going forward.
You might've seen me being a loud mouth on twitter
https://twitter.com/bergalex (but don't worry I can behave)
