If the eye of Sauron is upon you, GTFO of Mordor!

[nevafuse]

Can you be more specific?  What countries?  Diversify?  How many organizations and where?  Lots of pie in the sky talk...seems like.

Just start "The international bitcoin foundation" (or another name) elsewhere. There is no monopoly on it in the USA.  Competition is good.

People are free to vote with their donations.

It is ironic that someone is campaigning to stop lobbying for regulation when bitcoin has a mind of its own & isn't controlled by any particular group or association.  But I agree 100%.  The cat is out of the bag.  No one can stop the effects of crypto-currencies. 

But is any publicity good publicity?  Will lobbying the government, give people more time to learn about & transfer their wealth into bitcoin?  Or will it cause them to cut it off quickly because they realize how uprooting it is?  I personally think they are probably too arrogant to take quick action to slow bitcoin's inevitable dominance.

Even if it mattered what countries had foundations, I'm not sure there are many more free.  Most countries higher than the US on economic freedom still have huge controlling/regulating governments - just maybe a tad less controlling & regulating.

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[Arto]

The friendly folks at Let's Talk Bitcoin have now posted the audio recording of the final debate, which took place yesterday (Saturday).

My personal take on it, as posted to the Foundation forum:

Just finished listening to the recording. Good stuff. In my view, Joerg and Trace gave the strongest impressions, just about tied, but Ben also did a good job (all the more so given the raspy throat, which can't have been pleasant, as Adam noted).

The debate formed clearly around a big divide (to a first approximation coincident with the Atlantic?) regarding the necessity to internationalize the Foundation, and I suspect the votes next week may fall not dissimilarly—with Joerg and Trace on the one side, and largely Ms. Ploshay on the other.

As Joerg pointed out in the debate, what's at stake here is whether, going forward, this Foundation is to become the global umbrella organization for the Bitcoin universe, or merely remain a perceptibly U.S.-centered "Big Bitcoin" business club. If the Foundation's ~40% U.S.-based electorate should fail to look outward in this election, another organization will soon enough fill that void and the international relevancy of this Foundation will diminish accordingly and appropriately.

I know that a bunch of people over here in the Old World are just itching to make that happen, but I'd personally rather see this Foundation salvaged and repurposed towards better ends, as Jon Matonis is as ideal an appointment for an outwards-looking Executive Director as anyone could hope for. In any case, the electorate's decisions next week will be revelatory and significant.