[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation Board Election Details Announced

[theymos]

Hopefully whoever wins will honestly report on how much direction he/she is capable of as a member of the board. Maybe I'm wrong, but my strong impression is that directors won't be doing much interesting/important decision-making.

I am surprised that you believe we need _more_ lobbying efforts really. I would vote Ben, unfortunately I do not have a vote .

I don't see any harm in talking to politicians. It probably won't provide huge gains, but I doubt it will make the legal situation any worse.

[1713308063]

1713308063

[1713308063]

1713308063

[1713308063]

1713308063

[1713308063]

1713308063

[bbit]

Hopefully whoever wins will honestly report on how much direction he/she is capable of as a member of the board. Maybe I'm wrong, but my strong impression is that directors won't be doing much interesting/important decision-making.

 Elizabeth T. Ploshay is a good choice I agree with our sig.

[flix]

Here are the current candidates for the individual seat:
Elizabeth T. Ploshay
Edward Clements (edd)
Duncan Goldie-Scot
Nilam Doctor
Christian Kammler
Ben Davenport (bpd)
Trace Mayer
Luke Dashjr (Luke-Jr)
Dmitry Murashchik (Rassah)
Aaron Lasher (chalash)
Noah Silverman (noah977)
Pedro Fernandes
Ryan Deming
Joerg Platzer (joecooin)

I would really like to know the opinion of each candidate on a number of issues... I'm going to try to make a list of what I think are the major issues. Suggestions are welcome.

[flix]

Questionnaire for the candidates:

1. How would you respond to regulatory pressure to alter the Bitcoin protocol?
2. What are the defining features of Bitcoin and which is the most important?
3. What is your position on censorship and freedom of speech?
4. What are Property Rights?
5. How important is the 21 million BTC limit?
6. What is your stance on privacy? what about financial privacy?
7. What is the purpose of the Bitcoin Foundation?
8. What is your position on maximum block size?
9. What is your position on miner's fees?

[Arto]

I would really like to know the opinion of each candidate on a number of issues... I'm going to try to make a list of what I think are the major issues. Suggestions are welcome.

Did you see the Q&A that Adam Levine put together? That was pretty good. The recording(s) are at http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-foundation-candidate-debate/

[flix]

I would really like to know the opinion of each candidate on a number of issues... I'm going to try to make a list of what I think are the major issues. Suggestions are welcome.

Did you see the Q&A that Adam Levine put together? That was pretty good. The recording(s) are at http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-foundation-candidate-debate/

No, I hadn't seen it. Looks very good. Thank you very much.

[theymos]

I predict that these candidates will get the most votes in the primary, listed from most votes to least:

Elizabeth T. Ploshay
Joerg Platzer
Trace Mayer
Ben Davenport
Dmitry Murashchik
Luke Dashjr
Duncan Goldie-Scot

What do you think?

[willphase]

FWIW I will also probably be voting for Elizabeth, my only concern being that I felt some of her answers lacked gravitas and authority and sounded a bit sound-bitey compared with some of the other candidates e.g. Trace Mayer.  I'm listening to all the interviews on bitcointalk and will probably make my final decision after this.

I do think that we need to get ahead of any government regulation.  Governments are the core component of authority in the world we live and we can't just avoid that.   The biggest threat to bitcoin is that regulation clamps down on the exchanges and bitcoin becomes an undercover currency with no future in the modern economy - a currency where the only way of exchanging it is to meet someone on localbitcoins, and you can't buy anything online, simply has no future.  While it seems this might be the aim of some part of the bitcoin community since they will ideologically reject any form of government involvement, I think that getting legislators educated in bitcoin and give them a greater understanding that it's not just use for crime and is no different from cash, is absolutely critical to bitcoin's future success.

There is a key difference here between engaging with legislators and educating them that bitcoin does not need heavy handed regulation (as the foundation has done last week in Washington), from just shunning governments entirely and hoping that they will leave us alone saying 'na na you can't shut us down because you can't turn off the internet!!'.  This is the path to destruction, so any candidate that engages with regulators and government would get my vote.

Will

[Arto]

There is a key difference here between engaging with legislators and educating them that bitcoin does not need heavy handed regulation (as the foundation has done last week in Washington), from just shunning governments entirely and hoping that they will leave us alone saying 'na na you can't shut us down because you can't turn off the internet!!'.  This is the path to destruction, so any candidate that engages with regulators and government would get my vote.

In that case, you might be interested to hear more about what Joerg Platzer has to say. Joerg's ongoing dialogue with the German authorities, particularly with lawmaker Frank Schäffler, recently resulted in the German finance ministry officially recognizing bitcoins as a unit of account, what many consider a major milestone here in Europe.

Here's Joerg's no-holds-barred take on regulation vis-a-vis proactively educating authorities about Bitcoin as he has been doing for the past three years here in Berlin:

The absurdity of trying to regulate Bitcoin

> Imagine Gutenberg going to Rome to lobby for the printing press with the Pope!

There is an obvious divide going right through the Bitcoin community, more like a canyon than like a gap: for and against trying to get regulation and compliance of Bitcoin.

I am clearly taking a side on this issue: lobbying for Bitcoin and trying to implement it into the regulatory framework of the legacy financial system is an absurd, unreasonable and irresponsible waste of resources.

I would like to lift this discussion away from Bitcoin to the level of crypto-currency altogether. It is possible, even though now hardly imaginable, that Bitcoin could be co-opted on a political level and turned into something controllable. That is what the people on the regulatory side will ultimatively want and it means the implementation of transaction-reversibility, black- or whitelisting and KYC and AML on every level, even for human to human transactions. The regulators will not stop at getting the exchanges regulated (which is fine by the way as long as people can choose not to use them). Regulators and governments do not stop at half way or at 99% control, they want 100% control, always. 'A little regulated' is as much possible as 'a little pregnant'. Everybody who stands for 'compromising with the government' sounds like a dreamer to me as I have never seen a government 'compromise' with its subjects.

But even in the unlikely event of Bitcoin being turned into Paypal 2.0 that would not stop but merely delay the rise of crypto-currency as the next, more resilient one is waiting just around the corner. Even if the pope would have gained control over Gutenberg's first printing press and turned it into a machine that can only print bibles in Latin the next free printing press would have been built the next day by someone else.

The printing press and crypto-currency both are the kind of invention that change things forever. The first took away the church's monopoly on the contents of books and the second took away the government's monopoly on the creation of money. This kind of thing cannot be turned back, the technology is out and will never be collectively forgotten again.

Therefore and beyond all unnecessary and highly ideological arguments: you cannot regulate the unregulatable so let's stop wasting energy on this absurd undertaking please.

We can merely try to inform and educate governments and people about the changes coming up in order to help smooth the transition from our world to the rising crypto-economy so that this transition will be as painless and with as few victims and as little collateral damage as possible.

Please don't missunderstand what you call my 'goals'. When I say that Bitcoin will regulate the regulators and that the state has just lost one of the mechanisms from which it derives its most power, namely the monopoly on the creation of money, then these are not my goals. It doesn't even matter if I like that or not or if you or Obama or Merkel like that or not. It is simply what is happening.

So I am rather the messenger here reporting the obvious than someone demanding these things.

We should react to this new reality instead of playing around with our old mechanisms and organisations and my goal is probably to achieve that.

[Arto]

I predict that these candidates will get the most votes in the primary, listed from most votes to least:

Elizabeth T. Ploshay
Joerg Platzer
Trace Mayer
Ben Davenport
Dmitry Murashchik
Luke Dashjr
Duncan Goldie-Scot

What do you think?

I think the top-4 on this list, at least, seem like the obvious shortlist, as judged from conversations here, Reddit, and the Foundation forums. And indeed I'd myself vote for Joerg, Trace, or Ben—in exactly that order, in fact.

Have anyone placed bets on the outcome with one of the Bitcoin-based prediction markets, by the way? If so, please do post links...

[willphase]

I am clearly taking a side on this issue: lobbying for Bitcoin and trying to implement it into the regulatory framework of the legacy financial system is an absurd, unreasonable and irresponsible waste of resources.

I was impressed with Platzer's interview, but this quote is why I would struggle to vote for Platzer.  It's simply unrealistic to think that governments will ignore or let Bitcoin continue unless they are educated and 'lobbying' is done.  One cannot simply 'opt out' of lobbying, because the existing players in the market e.g. the banks and financial institutions whose business models are due to be disrupted by Bitcoin will be lobbying and be buying out the congressional representatives - if the Foundation does not get involve in this then put simply, it will lose, and Bitcoin will lose as a result.

Believing that somehow Bitcoin's benefits will somehow on their own impress governments and regulators enough with it's pure awesomeness is just naive - laws aren't passed because they are good for the country, laws are passed because someone stands to benefit from them.  The world has changed a lot since the creation of the printing press.

'you can't regulate the regulatable' is also a very worrying statement to hear - yes, sure you can't shut down bitcoin because you'd have to shut down the internet etc etc etc it's so awesome etc etc, but governments can regulate how businesses in jurisdictions operate - if the US government says that it's illegal to transfer USD to bitcoin, then bitcoin is dead, regardless of the existence of the underlying protocol, or small pockets of people using localbitcoins.   Saying something won't happen doesn't make it not happen.

I agree that the way the current (US) system of lobbying is far from ideal, the fact that special interest groups are pretty much able to buy out votes and attach riders onto bills to further their own gains is really quite bad, but it's the way things are done and it's better, in my view, to play the game than to opt out of the game entirely and lose out of principle.

By the way I have immense respect for what Platzer is doing in Germany and the EU, and I do think that the best approach is to educate legislators (as the BCF have already done!) and not go out and ASK for regulation, but I don't think that opting out of the whole dialog with Government is an option here, and lobbying is a key part of that dialog (like it or not!), and I see a worrying amount of rhetoric from Platzer's statements that this is what he wants to do out of principle.

Will

[joecooin]

I am clearly taking a side on this issue: lobbying for Bitcoin and trying to implement it into the regulatory framework of the legacy financial system is an absurd, unreasonable and irresponsible waste of resources.

One cannot simply 'opt out' of lobbying, because the existing players in the market e.g. the banks and financial institutions whose business models are due to be disrupted by Bitcoin will be lobbying and be buying out the congressional representatives - if the Foundation does not get involve in this then put simply, it will lose, and Bitcoin will lose as a result.

So you are suggesting the Bitcoin community should form a lobby that is more powerful and influencal than the existing lobby of banks and financial institutes and that has more buying power than those to be able to buy out more congressmen? If you really think that is possible I shall reconsider my statements .

Believing that somehow Bitcoin's benefits will somehow on their own impress governments and regulators enough with it's pure awesomeness is just naive - laws aren't passed because they are good for the country, laws are passed because someone stands to benefit from them. 

That is exactly how I see it, and in our case the 'somebody' can be defined as the legacy financial aristocracy. Since these groups will never ever benefit from an unregulated free market currency you will never ever see any approval for it from them.  That simple.

'you can't regulate the regulatable'

'you can't regulate the UNregulatable' is what I said. And with that I meant the concept of crypto currency altogether, not just Bitcoin. We can sacrifice Bitcoin on the altar of regulation now but that will not stop crypto currencies from taking over the financial system, it will merely throw the development back a couple of years and destroy all the value that has by now evolved in the Bitcoin economy.

... but I don't think that opting out of the whole dialog with Government is an option here, and lobbying is a key part of that dialog (like it or not!), and I see a worrying amount of rhetoric from Platzer's statements that this is what he wants to do out of principle.

Sorry in case I wasn't clear enough on that. I don't say we should not interact with and talk to government.

But looking at the disruptive potential of crypto currency I strongly believe that the lobbying-concepts of the past will not take us anywhere when it comes to organising a smooth transition of our current system to one based on crypto technology.

There is no point trying to get crypto currency implemented into the old system and it's ideals and ideas, now's the time to develop entirely new systems and ideas that are only now possible with the advent of the blockchain.

Governments an financial institutions will play a much smaller role in that new system and this is what we need to educate them about. We need to develop new ideas for how an adminstration can get the funding for necessary projects after having lost the power to tax income or to confiscate bank accounts whenever they need some cash because simply these times are coming to an end. We need mechanisms that allow the funding of public goods and services based on volantury contributions by the people who understand that their society needs these goods and services and who can by funding these projects make their vote for what the government should do with every payment.

We are talking about hyperdemocratisation.

And we need to consult government in regards to what they can do to make the transition as painless and with as little victims and collataral damage for society as possible. That is their ultimate responsibility.

Imagine an asteroid heading towards earth on collision course. Seeing it comming, does it make more sense to turn around and ask the government if that asteroid has all the licences it needs to creat a compliant impact on the planet's surface or does it make more sense to try to estimate the location and magnitude of that impact and to evacuate as many people as possible and to get prepared for the consequences of the impact?

Crypto currency is a rather huge asteroid for the financial system and it does not care about being licensed or not in the long run and no license will reduce its impact.

I think.

Joe

[willphase]

I just don't think it's the time yet for 'hyperdemocratisation', I think that will come some time in the future once adoption has picked up more.  We need to deal with the existential threat to bitcoin, which is that governments will misunderstand it, and slam misguided regulation on the transfer of funds in and out of the virtual currency space, based on a combination of paranoia, lack of education, and lobbying from the big players in the existing financial system.

I agree that the core bitcoin protocol can't be regulated, but the protocol itself without any links into the existing financial system, will fail and just not get the widespread adoption that bitcoin needs to succeed.  I think you're letting your idealist long-term vision of a world where everyone transacts in bitcoins peer-to-peer and taxes are gone because it's the community funding community projects based on merit, the legacy financial system is dead and buried, cloud the short term goals that are more important.

As such, we need someone who will engage fully with the US government, not someone who is saying 'trying to implement it into the regulatory framework of the legacy financial system is an absurd' and hope that the banks who are refusing to open accounts for bitcoin businesses understand, or that the momentum will pick up enough in isolation that it becomes inevitable - it won't.

Will

[mikegogulski]

There is a huge difference between "educating legislators" and paying kilobuck-an-hour white-shoe lawyers from top-rung lobbying firms to engage with the influence peddlers of Mordor on the Potomac.

For example, the foundation could fund development and maintenance of a grassroots, participatory network based on tech like CivicRM (http://civicrm.org/). This in turn can be used GLOBALLY to enable individuals and businesses to educate legislators, the bureaucracy, and other businesses, on every level from hyper-local to international. CivicRM can also be used for fundraising and volunteer recruitment efforts in a host of areas.

[Arto]

As such, we need someone who will engage fully with the US government, not someone who is saying 'trying to implement it into the regulatory framework of the legacy financial system is an absurd' and hope that the banks who are refusing to open accounts for bitcoin businesses understand, or that the momentum will pick up enough in isolation that it becomes inevitable - it won't.

I believe Joerg's coming at this from a multi-decade cypherpunk perspective where he's witnessed time and again that you can try all you want to get all your ducks in a row and proactively ask the powers that be to regulate you, and still get screwed. At least when it comes to U.S. interests, for whom maintaining the dollar hegemony is a categorical imperative that is not open to negotiation.

As Jon Matonis aptly put this, "Doug Jackson of e-gold knows you can have the rules changed on you at any time." ...and: "We can see from the case against digital money provider e-gold that an efficient challenger to the provision of a stable monetary unit will not be permitted."

That is, e-gold tried to do everything "right", with what in hindsight was an almost pathetic naivety and trust in the rule of law and justice in the U.S., and they still got screwed over big time. (Indeed, as Jeffrey Tucker puts it, "Bitcoin is karma for e-gold"; which speaks to Joerg's point that sometimes the next generation can learn from the previous one's naivety.) Joerg and Jon Matonis clearly see eye-to-eye on this question.

As you no doubt have heard, Mt.Gox are presently getting a good taste, to the tune of a cool $5M, of how it feels when the rules get changed on you retroactively. It's a safe bet they won't be the last to learn that lesson, regardless of any and all lobbying efforts to the contrary.

[ThickAsThieves]

As such, we need someone who will engage fully with the US government, not someone who is saying 'trying to implement it into the regulatory framework of the legacy financial system is an absurd' and hope that the banks who are refusing to open accounts for bitcoin businesses understand, or that the momentum will pick up enough in isolation that it becomes inevitable - it won't.

I believe Joerg's coming at this from a multi-decade cypherpunk perspective where he's witnessed time and again that you can try all you want to get all your ducks in a row and proactively ask the powers that be to regulate you, and still get screwed. At least when it comes to U.S. interests, for whom maintaining the dollar hegemony is a categorical imperative that is not open to negotiation.

As Jon Matonis aptly put this, "Doug Jackson of e-gold knows you can have the rules changed on you at any time." ...and: "We can see from the case against digital money provider e-gold that an efficient challenger to the provision of a stable monetary unit will not be permitted."

That is, e-gold tried to do everything "right", with what in hindsight was an almost pathetic naivety and trust in the rule of law and justice in the U.S., and they still got screwed over big time. (Indeed, as Jeffrey Tucker puts it, "Bitcoin is karma for e-gold"; which speaks to Joerg's point that sometimes the next generation can learn from the previous one's naivety.) Joerg and Jon Matonis clearly see eye-to-eye on this question.

As you no doubt have heard, Mt.Gox are presently getting a good taste, to the tune of a cool $5M, of how it feels when the rules get changed on you retroactively. It's a safe bet they won't be the last to learn that lesson, regardless of any and all lobbying efforts to the contrary.

Your example implies Gox had the rug pulled from under them. Wasn't it Gox that was not following the rules?

[td services]

As such, we need someone who will engage fully with the US government, not someone who is saying 'trying to implement it into the regulatory framework of the legacy financial system is an absurd' and hope that the banks who are refusing to open accounts for bitcoin businesses understand, or that the momentum will pick up enough in isolation that it becomes inevitable - it won't.

I believe Joerg's coming at this from a multi-decade cypherpunk perspective where he's witnessed time and again that you can try all you want to get all your ducks in a row and proactively ask the powers that be to regulate you, and still get screwed. At least when it comes to U.S. interests, for whom maintaining the dollar hegemony is a categorical imperative that is not open to negotiation.

As Jon Matonis aptly put this, "Doug Jackson of e-gold knows you can have the rules changed on you at any time." ...and: "We can see from the case against digital money provider e-gold that an efficient challenger to the provision of a stable monetary unit will not be permitted."

That is, e-gold tried to do everything "right", with what in hindsight was an almost pathetic naivety and trust in the rule of law and justice in the U.S., and they still got screwed over big time. (Indeed, as Jeffrey Tucker puts it, "Bitcoin is karma for e-gold"; which speaks to Joerg's point that sometimes the next generation can learn from the previous one's naivety.) Joerg and Jon Matonis clearly see eye-to-eye on this question.

As you no doubt have heard, Mt.Gox are presently getting a good taste, to the tune of a cool $5M, of how it feels when the rules get changed on you retroactively. It's a safe bet they won't be the last to learn that lesson, regardless of any and all lobbying efforts to the contrary.

+1

Couldn't have explained it better myself.

You cannot negotiate with terrorists.

[dwdoc]

I just voted by email.

[Rassah]

Your example implies Gox had the rug pulled from under them. Wasn't it Gox that was not following the rules?

Gox was following the rules, since at the time of their founding, Bitcoin was nothing more than collectibles, a hobby, or a fake money that was just a part of an experiment among geeks. Then suddenly Bitcoin started to be worth something, FinCEN changed the rules, and two month later, since Gox hasn't complied yet, seized their money.

I do believe we need a lobbyist. I do agree that Bitcoin is like the inevitable asteroid, but we can't strap rockets to it to bring it down faster any more than government can legislate where it must land and what kind of licensing it must have to make a landing. Bitcoin will get there on its own, and I believe it will be inevitable. In the meantime, we should make sure that it getting there is as easy on Bitcoin users and businesses as possible. This means both, educating the legislators on what Bitcoin is and how to best deal with it, and organizing bitcoin businesses and users into a powerful block that can defend itself, somewhat in Washington (though it may be hard against established lobbyists), and especially in the public eye. We must demonstrate the benefits of Bitcoin, and advertise all the good things about it, so that the established powers don't have a target to attack it with. This means proactively building support, both among legislators and among the general public, in a way so that by the time they come with claims that it's being used drugs and money laundering, everyone will already know it, know that that's no different from how other currencies are used, know that those bringing these accusations are themselves guilty of those crimes (looking at you HSBC), and know that Bitcoin is a better option. This will require a very cunning game of political chess.
Or we can sit back, talk about random meaningless shit, and just let the inevitable happen, including all the crashing and burning that will likely come as a result.

I am still listening to the interviews (was visiting in-laws this weekend, so didn't have time to catch up). I will obviously vote for myself in the first round, but I am not naive enough to believe that I am the best candidate for this job. That said, I am torn between Elizabeth and Joerg. I think Joerg is the best candidate I've heard so far. His views represent mine the closest. Strategically he is also the best to represent Bitcoin, both because he understands what kind of fight will be involved, and most importantly because he can build a sort of offshore beachhead, should things go bad here. Even if they don't, attacking this thing from two sides will make winning this fight easier, since we here in US can point to Germany, the European financial powerhouse, and say, "But they're going along with it," then turn around, point to US from Germany, and say the same thing. On the other hand, I think Joerg may do better on his own, if he was not tied down by the foundation. He strikes me as someone who will do whatever he feels is necessary, regardless of what the rest of the world tells him, so I believe he will do what is right for Bitcoin in Germany whether he wins or not. As for Elizabeth, based on her writing she doesn't seem like a very strategic person, but she does have a way with words. Not necessarily enough to convince any INTJ/ENTJ types, since most of her writings didn't really say much, but maybe that's what the foundation needs if they are to try to persuade Washington and the public: someone who can communicate with feelings about how great Bitcoin is, instead of bothering with logic and detailed point-by-point rebuttals, and who can sell it to the general public.
I'm still leaning towards voting for Joerg in the second vote.

[Boussac]

I believe there are at least 3 highly qualified candidates in this election, namely Elizabeth Ploshay, Trace Mayer and Joerg Platzer.
Both Elizabeth and Trace write and speak very well about Bitcoin. I met Trace at a NACHA conference in Vienna where we were both invited to pseak and I was impressed with his etnhusiasm and clarity. Elizabeth has experience in dealing with the powers to be and would add much needed gender diversity at the board.
Joerg has my vote today though because of what is has helped accomplish in Berlin (convince local businesses to start accepting bitcoins), an experience I would like to replicate in my home town (Paris). He would add much needed international diversity to the board too.