Bitcoin devs, CEOs, others to gather for Satoshi Roundtable retreat this month

[BruceFenton]

The third Satoshi Roundtable retreat once again brings together industry leaders at a private resort for deep discussions on bitcoin and blockchain technology.  The gathering, limited in size to approximately 100 industry members and known as one of the key events in the blockchain world, takes place at a resort in North America later this month.


This month, top developers, executives, and influencers will explore various topics and issues facing the industry.  Attendees include Dr. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, Dr. Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock, Johnathan Johnson, President of T0, Erik Voorhees, CEO of Shapeshift, Roger Ver, CEO of Bitcoin.com, leading developers like Peter Todd and Eric Lombrozo amongst many others.


The members include a variety of leaders working with Bitcoin, Hyperledger, Ethereum, other blockchain apps, digital token and coin sponsors, advocacy groups and others from the broad blockchain ecosystem.  Participants include C-level executives and founders of Netki, Decentral, Unsung, ConsensSys, Ledger, Bitfury, Open Bazaar, C4, Polychain, Civic, Bitt, Bitgo, Storj, Ethereum, Dash, Bitfinex, Circle, Monero, Genesis Mining, Auger, Bitstamp, Align Commerce, Veriblock and others.  Senior blockchain executives from larger organizations such as Fidelity Investments, IBM and the World Bank also participate.  Jerry Britto, Executive Director of leading cryptocurrency policy group, Coin Center will lead a discussion on regulation which will include a talk from US Congressman Cynthia Lummis, on how the industry can most effectively avoid harmful regulations.  Confirmed attendees also include Alan Cohn of the Blockchain Alliance, Llew Claasen, Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation, subject matter experts such as attorney Carol van Cleef, investors such as Ben Davenport and Simon Dixon, academics such as Emin Gün Sirer of Princeton, various early adopters, authors and influencers.


Aside from the all-star attendee list, the retreat also breaks from other events in its format and design.  Using "open space technology" or a decentralized "unconference" format, the Roundtable has few formal keynote style talks, or even scheduled sessions, and instead focuses on participant-driven discussion and organic content and scheduling.  "Since everyone is qualified to be a speaker, we don't differentiate between attendees.  The seats are arranged in circles and the group together decides the direction of the sessions based on what is most useful to them.", said Bruce Fenton, CEO of Atlantic Financial and the event's host. "One thing people enjoy about conventional conferences most, is side discussions in the hallway or at meals.  At The Satoshi Roundtable we design the entire event to foster and facilitate this type of deep, meaningful discussion among peers whether it's the whole room, a dozen people, or a breakaway with three people who share a very specific common interest."  Since attendees are carefully selected, participants are more comfortable and can jump into advanced conversations more quickly. Media interaction is off the record and entrepreneurs are encouraged to move out of "pitch mode".


The schedule includes several group meals, two full days in the Roundtable sessions, coffee meetings and cocktail parties, as well as significant time for breakaway discussions, informal gatherings and entertainment. Activities such as golf, water skiing, yoga, tennis, and optional evening poker, strategy and tabletop board games are also organized.  Families and children are also welcome to attend the event and the venue offers childcare and numerous activities.


To receive an invite, prospective attendees typically must be founders or C-level execs of funded startups, senior blockchain focused executives at major corporations, active investors, accomplished developers, or leading academics, notable authors and influencers.  Interested parties can request a waitlist or invitation from the hosts.
 

[cellard]

Sounds cool, but I want the entire thing to be recorded and uploaded to youtube, I don't like secretism and hidden bullshit, I want to see everything that is said there otherwise this feels Bilderberg Group bitcoin edition.

Ideally the entire event should be streamed live. I also want to see Roger Ver and other anti segwit and anti Core people debate the likes of Adam Back live and we'll see who is the most knowledgeable on bitcoin. Im tired of people talking shit on forums, let's see how they handle real life debate.

[franky1]

im sorry but adam back has publicly said he does not code for bitcoin, even his second in command has said adam back is not involved in bitcoin.
im sorry but hyperledger, IBM, etc, etc have nothing to do with bitcoin,

so why the hell is adam back attending and noted as the main guy... oh wait..
i forgot,
adam back wants to direct the direction bitcoin takes because he needs to commercialise it to make returns of near $100mill to his banker investors.

if anyone has not yet woken up to the obvious, then please keep one eye open in regards to what happens next

this round table is not going to be a open room for devs to discuss developing bitcoin based on its open permissionless ethos, but instead its a kiss ass exercise to tempt merchants and pools over to blockstreams plans.

all fully paid for by blockstream.

do not expect an unbiased open discussion coming out of it, just expect lots of fake applauds for cores efforts and lots of applauds for making onchain tx's become more bloated in the future as a plan to push people away from using onchain transactions for individual needs.

EG averaged 400bytes become well over 1kb once more blockstream features are added (confidential commitments, etc) which inevitably will push down the 'expectant' post segwit (and pre 2013) 7tx/s.... to drop back down to 3tx/s once again..

with all the banking (hyperledger) guys mentioned i see this all inclusive vacation to mainly talk about how bitcoin(thanks to their ignorance) cant scale and end up talking about tethering bitcoin to the bankers hyperledger as a sidechain.

say goodbye to permissionless peer to peer currency ethos and say hello to a 2018 'bank product' like side chains and coomercial LN hubs

rant over

[BruceFenton]

so why the hell is adam back attending and noted as the main guy... oh wait..
i forgot,
adam back wants to direct the direction bitcoin takes because he needs to commercialise it to make returns of ......

all fully paid for by blockstream.

rant over

Adam is one of 100 participants-- he is listed prominent because he is well known and well respected, is one of only a few people who's work is referenced in the Satoshi Whitepaper and his company is important to Bitcoin because it has solid relations to Bitcoin core dev (including employing more devs than anyone else)

No...blockstream is not paying for the event in any way

Who would you suggest for the list?

[franky1]

so why the hell is adam back attending and noted as the main guy... oh wait..
i forgot,
adam back wants to direct the direction bitcoin takes because he needs to commercialise it to make returns of ......

all fully paid for by blockstream.

rant over

Adam is one of 100 participants-- he is listed prominent because he is well known and well respected, is one of only a few people who's work is referenced in the Satoshi Whitepaper and his company is important to Bitcoin because it has solid relations to Bitcoin core dev (including employing more devs than anyone else)

No...blockstream is not paying for the event in any way

Who would you suggest for the list?

maybe 100 people who actually are involved with BITCOIN and not just the outside corporate / investor backers that want to commercialise it at the expense of removing the whole point of bitcoins ethos when initially invented.

it makes me laugh you wish to call it a SATOSHI roundtable.. as thats the main gripe/slap in the face of the dressing the wolf in sheeps clothing.
just call it commercialising bitcoin roundtable.. atleast reveal the objective and be transparent

because from what i can see about the 100 people.. where 80-90 attendee's are in one sides pockets.. = biased conversation ending in on side solutions

[BruceFenton]

Sounds cool, but I want the entire thing to be recorded and uploaded to youtube, I don't like secretism and hidden bullshit, I want to see everything that is said there otherwise this feels Bilderberg Group bitcoin edition.

Ideally the entire event should be streamed live. I also want to see Roger Ver and other anti segwit and anti Core people debate the likes of Adam Back live and we'll see who is the most knowledgeable on bitcoin. Im tired of people talking shit on forums, let's see how they handle real life debate.

I understand the sentiment but that's just not realistic and will probably never happen in a group like this in any industry or space  -- when people play to the media or a large audience like Reddit or Twitter quality of engagement goes WAY down and substance goes out the window.

There are also tons of things that make sense to talk about privately that are not appropriate to discuss publicly:  hiring decisions, suspected scammers, issues with regulators etc -- people won't generally talk about these things in a public forum.

There will never be transparency of this type in this or any industry -- people will always grab each other at dinner or side meetings -- leaving only the superficial stuff for the cameras.

The US Congress has two full time dedicated news networks and five dozen reporters covering it...every word said on the floor is broadcast, archived and transcripted.   Does that mean it's better?   Not really.   It's about the people and systems.

Overall, worked hard to invite people with a track record of helping this tech, understanding its roots and doing the right thing --- we can't record it,  privacy has a valuable place in society, discussion and this industry IMHO

[franky1]

topics that need to be discussed.

1. stop with the fake drama/doomsdays of 2million terrabyte blocks tomorrow. and instead the logical, workable non disruptive dynamic blocksize beginning with 2mb base 4mb weight as a new initial default. discuss and issue timelines of real acceptable consensus. ( with full knowledge that core wanted their rules activated within one month!! so no stupid exaggeratedly long term grace periods, just for 5% lingerers as suggested last year)
after all.. after nodes reach 95% to trigger a pool consensus. the 5% nodes will have time during the pool consensus to catch up.. so by the time a pool consensus reaches 95%. the node consensus woud logically have risen above 95%

2. LN and sidechains to be discussed as VOLUNTARY side options not the solution/end goal for bitcoin. an definetly no effort should be made to think up idea's to restrict bitcoins main net more to "incentivise" people to other networds (Lightning network / sidechains)

3. CODE solutions for a better priority mechanism for transactions, not economic penalties (meaning: ways to use code to sort who needs/deserves priority to not push the fee up, which makes bitcoins utility decrease)

4. think about the tx fee in an international mindset of developing countries ($0.05c = hours labour) and not just in the mindset of an american where 5cents= 1 minute of labour

5. CODE solutions to prevent DDoS/spam (EG transactions have a sigops/ byte limit.. or even as part of a new priority format where coin maturity is more involved to not reward those with 1confirm priority status to respam the chain constantly) and not an economic penalty.. yes i have seen the 'concept' material that pushes on chain prices up and also has lots of fee penalties for for LN users

6. highlight the fee war is a 120 YEAR war and NOT a 120 DAY way, we should not be pushing to battle and kill users so fast and soon

[BruceFenton]

maybe 100 people who actually are involved with BITCOIN and not just the outside corporate / investor backers that want to commercialise it at the expense of removing the whole point of bitcoins ethos when initially invented.

it makes me laugh you wish to call it a SATOSHI roundtable.. as thats the main gripe/slap in the face of the dressing the wolf in sheeps clothing.
just call it commercialising bitcoin roundtable.. atleast reveal the objective and be transparent

because from what i can see about the 100 people.. where 80-90 attendee's are in one sides pockets.. = biased conversation ending in on side solutions

Well it's not purely a Bitcoin event it's a blockchain event -- Satoshi invented the blockchain --  but having said that it's still overwhelmingly Bitcoin companies -- more of them than all the others combined.

I think it's pretty rare that people want to commercialize Bitcoin at the expense of its principles....I sure don't.   I think things like onramps and wallets and exchanges are GOOD for Bitcoin.   Not sure what kind of vision you'd have for Bitcoin or what kind of adoption we'd see with no Bitpay, no exchanges, no wallets etc.

[BruceFenton]

Thanks for the topic suggestions -- good ones

[franky1]

Well it's not purely a Bitcoin event it's a blockchain event -- Satoshi invented the blockchain --  but having said that it's still overwhelmingly Bitcoin companies -- more of them than all the others combined.

I think it's pretty rare that people want to commercialize Bitcoin at the expense of its principles....I sure don't.   I think things like onramps and wallets and exchanges are GOOD for Bitcoin.   Not sure what kind of vision you'd have for Bitcoin or what kind of adoption we'd see with no Bitpay, no exchanges, no wallets etc.

satoshi didnt invent the blockchain.
satoshi patched together lots of peoples different idea's which were invented as far back as the 1970's into a beautiful, functional and and fluid concept that works.

blockchain concept has been around prior to 2008. just not with all the 'add-ons' satoshi brought together to make bitcoin what it is.

as for my opinion of commercialisation. i mean corrupting, inhibiting, and messing with bitcoins mainnet to cause people to use commercial (middlemen) as the ONLY solution..

yes have commercial services on the sidelines as VOLUNTARY services.. but not to cripple/holdback bitcoins mainnet to incentivise people into commercial services

[franky1]

oh and lastly.

if theres gonna be any talk about mainstreaming bitcoin into something user friendly (granny/naive noob) and secure (hardware wallet)

pass this idea onto the hardware wallets and merchants and front end dev's as a concept to get around the QR code irritation issue and the decimal counting/cost conversion issue.

advertising bitcoin is not the problem.

using bitcoin is.
it needs to be simplified!!
even hardware wallets need to be revamped. the issue is that it is too cumbersome, complicated and needs downloads/browser extensions or server access.. plus needing to copy and paste lengthy gobbledegook addresses and decimal numbers

but there is a solution, should someone want to do it.
SMART WATCHES/FITBIT wristbands

advantages
no software touches the device
private keys remain hidden
the device is wearable (new fashion craze=popular)
making a tx is as simple as shaking your wrist
no need to understand the mechanics of bitcoin to use it

just google "programmable smart watches with NFC" and you'll see the tech is available.


barclays are ahead of the game. first they are doing it with their native fiat payment method,
https://www.shop.bpay.co.uk/categories/buy-bpay/product/wristband/wristband


but barclays is knee's deep in hyperldger so next will be a hyperledger wristband, which will make hyperledger (bitcoins altcoin(banker) competitor) appealing to people that are not paranoid geeks

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Sounds cool, but I want the entire thing to be recorded and uploaded to youtube, I don't like secretism and hidden bullshit, I want to see everything that is said there otherwise this feels Bilderberg Group bitcoin edition.

Ideally the entire event should be streamed live. I also want to see Roger Ver and other anti segwit and anti Core people debate the likes of Adam Back live and we'll see who is the most knowledgeable on bitcoin. Im tired of people talking shit on forums, let's see how they handle real life debate.

Good post this!

Especially agree with the bolded bit.

[franky1]

Sounds cool, but I want the entire thing to be recorded and uploaded to youtube, I don't like secretism and hidden bullshit, I want to see everything that is said there otherwise this feels Bilderberg Group bitcoin edition.

Ideally the entire event should be streamed live. I also want to see Roger Ver and other anti segwit and anti Core people debate the likes of Adam Back live and we'll see who is the most knowledgeable on bitcoin. Im tired of people talking shit on forums, let's see how they handle real life debate.

Good post this!

Especially agree with the bolded bit.

closed door speeches and presentations are bad. what are they hiding.

in short if its something that cannot be said publicly then it should not be pencilled in as an idea/direction to take bitcoin towards.

yea have off topic random politic hating conversation in private. but all bitcoin idea's and plans should be public.

hiding features/idea/directions for bitcoin is a big no no

afterall we cant have another year of publicly saying "core agree's to segwit by mid 2016 and dynamic blocks in 2017" but privately laugh at how they are not intending to hold themselves to those public statements.

no more wishy washy grandios statements of no meaning and many backtracks
no more half truths or exaggerated doomsdays to set negative agenda's

we need ethical, positive and honourable idea's to scale bitcoins mainnet. logically, rationally and realistically.

[BruceFenton]

Well there isn't really many formal speeches or presentations at all.

Format is more like working groups.

Think of it like 10 industry people grabbing dinner.

This doesn't cover things like scaling does such as a voting on plans or something.

[BruceFenton]

As far as the privacy, there are a million things that people don't want public:
- criticizing someone
- disagreeing with a business plan (example, ABC company just got startup funding for an editable blockchain project -- if I think that's a bad idea I'm not likely to say so publicly because I don't want to harm them ...I'd rather talk to them and convince them)
- discussions of joint ventures or deals that are not public
- discussions of challenges (XYZ Funded company keeps losing key staff and thinks it's hurting the business badly, they want advice from fellow CEOs...they would not ask this publicly because they don't want to cause alarm or scare off customers)
- is _____ a scam?   Privately I will circulate names like I have concerns about ____ and here are the concerns -- I won't do so publicly unless it's like OneCoin and I'm 100% absolutely sure it's a scam.   If I'm only 90% sure I won't tweet it because I don't want the risk of slandering a good business

Etc.

[BruceFenton]

Remember -- no matter what the APPEARANCE is of transparency NO meeting is really transparent.   

US Congress broadcasts everything ...doesn't work.

 I could annoy everyone, park streaming cameras in the room and broadcast every minute --- the companies and others would simply alter what they say and tailor it to an audience and most would be silent....  then at dinner people would break off into groups and end up talking over coffee until 2am ...if we recorded dinner convos they'd head to the bar...if we recorded thst they'd head to their hotel rooms.

My suggestion:  anything you are concerned about, publicly ask a company what their position is and hold them to their words 

[TrumpD]

I am sorry,  but no Satoshi no party.

[BillyBobZorton]

franky don't be ridiculous, there are anti segwit and anti core people such as Roger Ver invited, so why are you talking the usual bullshit with your Alex Jones tier theories about how blockstream is working with banks, when if anyone is working with banks then that would be Roger Ver and the rest of idiots trying to turn bitcoin into paypal 2.0 by centralizing the nodes with ridiculous block size increases.

The dynamic block size proposal is a failure and doesn't work, how many times does BU need to be debunked for you to get it.

Activate segwit and stfu.

[franky1]

franky don't be ridiculous, there are anti segwit and anti core people such as Roger Ver invited, so why are you talking the usual bullshit with your Alex Jones tier theories about how blockstream is working with banks, when if anyone is working with banks then that would be Roger Ver and the rest of idiots trying to turn bitcoin into paypal 2.0 by centralizing the nodes with ridiculous block size increases.

The dynamic block size proposal is a failure and doesn't work, how many times does BU need to be debunked for you to get it.

Activate segwit and stfu.

lol i guess your not a coder or someone that actually runs scenarios, or researches
instead you just get spoonfed some info and stick to a story told to you by atleast 3 people and because their script sounds the same you automatically deem it must be true.

try doing some research

blockstream are tied to hyperledger.. go check out the "members" page of hyperledger
https://www.hyperledger.org/about/members

then count the number of attendee's that are paid blockstream devs. then count the number of attendee's that are hyperledger members. and you will see its not a 50:50 split of pro:anti core.. its 80-90% pro-core(blockstream)

but hey you cant argue the facts.. so instead you wanna sling insults instead.

try backing up your statement that the meeting is unbiased, and dont just throw in an empty gesture reference. show something of real equal substance

also LN is paypal2.0... go research it..
and i mean really research it. really understand and read all the details of how core/blockstream devs want the hub managers to work/make income/control channels..

learn CLTV (in human real world usage terms its like the 3-5business day hold on 'available bank balance' paypal does)
learn CSV revokes (in human real world usage terms its like the chargebacks paypal does)

look at the 'penalty fees' blockstream devs have as a concept for mitigating issues.
learn who is actually offering the paypal2.0 and be part of reality.. not part of a misdirecting story you have been told

[BruceFenton]

If you have ideas on how to make it a more balanced mix, I'm all ears.

Who specifically should be invited who is not?

Right now, I think the mix is pretty representative of the industry: dominate by Bitcoin and Bitcoin companies and devs, but with a healthy number of alt coins or non Bitcoin blockchain folks and Ethereum etc and then some investors and service providers.


If you look at its evolution, it should be clear the guest list isn't pushing some agenda -- year one there were very few blockchain people other than Bitcoin so we had 90% Bitcoin and then Vitalik and a couple others.    Year 2 it was more of a mix, this year it's almost 50/50 pure Bitcoin / other blockchain projects.   

A lot of other blockchain projects have been isolated from bitcoin, I think that it's ideal to get everyone talking -- weaker chains can see the benefits of the Bitcoin chain and Bitcoin can benefit from learning more about what the massive companies want to do.