A call for the Bitcoin Foundation to appoint a new board or dissolve

[abbyd]

In light of the lawsuit brought by Coinlab against Mtgox and as a lifetime member of the Bitcoin Foundation, I'm calling for a removal of the board (with the exception of Gavin Andresen) and a new board to be appointed. The Bitcoin Foundation has lost whatever credibility it had with this lawsuit, a lawsuit brought by the executive director against a fellow board member.

Bitcoin itself is a maturing technology. The same can't be said for all of its advocates.

Forget about the foundation - if Gavin leaves they won't have a pot to piss in... So far he seems to support the lawsuit, but what will he do when Coinlab loses?!  He's a smart geek - my guess is that he can make plenty of money coding for a new BTC exchange... these Coinlab guys are clowns.

[Explodicle]

Unless you have a credible method for replacements I'm not sure what you accomplish.

Everyone who cares signs an approval ballot with the official client, and the vote is weighted by the number of coins the signer controls.
OR
Prediction market on BTC price conditional upon potential replacements: the replacement with the greatest predicted increase becomes the new board member.
OR
Let this play out first, and if there's still trouble someone will quit.

[LightRider]

The Bitcoin Foundation: Because if there's one thing Satoshi Nakamoto approved and endorsed, it was private forums protected by pay walls participated in by easily identifiable individuals supporting institutional bureaucracy and false authority to the detriment of all bitcoin stakeholders.

He would be so proud.

[abbyd]

The Bitcoin Foundation: Because if there's one thing Satoshi Nakamoto approved and endorsed, it was private forums protected by pay walls participated in by easily identifiable individuals supporting institutional bureaucracy and false authority to the detriment of all bitcoin stakeholders.

He would be so proud.

Ouch. The silence from the "Foundation" is deafening on this issue. All I can think of is Caesar (Karpeles) getting quietly stabbed in the back by everyone. Sure, maybe Gox sucks somewhat. But they're the only company making good money off Bitcoin, and they're also one of the few companies providing a useful service. So, let's throw a wrench into that, rather than just opening other exchanges?  On top of that, let's throw in a bunch of proposals for "good regulations" to really stifle the markets. I can't think of a WORSE strategy for Bitcoin!

What I'd like to know:

* Who sold bitcoins in advance of the lawsuit announcement
* How long ago this lawsuit was planned
* What the endgame is
* What backroom deals have been made regarding regulation
* Who the undercover fed is in the foundation

Thanks for your consideration.

[Vitalik Buterin]

I agree with one thing, coinlab isn't getting 75M, they'll be lucky if mtgox agrees to settle for 1M if mtgox was in breach of contract, probably even less.

But if a contract was made between coinlab and mtgox, there will be break up fees for sure.

The point of initially citing figures like 75M is never to actually get 75M. It's actually quite a bit more devious than that.

Excerpting William Poundstone's Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value:

Psychologists Gretchen Chapman and Brian Bornstein tested this idea in a 1996 experiment, when Liebeck v. McDonald’s was much in the news. They presented eighty University of Illinois students with the hypothetical case of a young woman who said she contracted ovarian cancer from birth control pills and was suing her HMO. Four groups each heard a different demand for damages: $100; $20,000; $5 million; and $1 billion. The mock jurors were asked to give compensatory damages only. Anyone who wants to believe in the jury system must find the results astonishing.

Demand.................	Award (average)
$100	$990
$20,000	$36,000
$5 million	$440,000
$1 billion	$490,000

S. Reed Morgan, of the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit, has described attorneys such as himself as “entrepreneurs.” By seeking liability suit jackpots, professional litigators provide incentives for big companies to worry about the safety of their products. Less sympathetic observers dismiss this as “lottery litigation.” Either way, attorneys facing the legal wheel of fortune sometimes refrain from asking jurors for a specific amount. They fear that a reasonable figure might preempt a windfall, and a high-end figure could boomerang. Chapman and Bornstein’s experiment suggests otherwise. The title of their paper says it all: “The More You Ask For, the More You Get.”

[LightRider]

http://two-bit-idiot.tumblr.com/post/78868284696/coup-or-death-for-the-bitcoin-foundation

[Nathonas]

Or how about...we just stop paying attention to them and let them die off on their own? The Bitcoin community never asked for a foundation, and we certainly don't need some kind of a "authority" for a decentralized currency. If someone wants to sue them for whatever damage they have done they should, but as a community I think the best thing to do is let them sink into obscurity.

[BitTrade]

And we should develop a decentralized voting mechanism on top of ethereum to elect the new board

[Mike@Coinswag]

And we should develop a decentralized voting mechanism on top of ethereum to elect the new board

I like the idea of making it more democratic.

Take a look at this thread, and add your point of view if you think it is an idea worth working toward: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=498644.msg5487692#msg5487692