who is next?

[grau]

Jeff - BitPay
Gavin - Coinbase
Mike - Circle

Does this remain a community project?

[bluemeanie1]

Jeff - BitPay
Gavin - Coinbase
Mike - Circle

Does this remain a community project?

I certainly wouldn't call Bitcoin an open community effort at this point.  'Mining' has been monopolized, and most users interact with Bitcoin via some web service.  This leaves a bulky, over extended internal protocol that requires huge processing power, and is inevitably going to cost much more in transaction fees.  Going forward it's going to be more of a marketing effort by big banks to sell services, just like they always have.

[BitCoinDream]

Jeff - BitPay
Gavin - Coinbase
Mike - Circle

Does this remain a community project?

Gavin joined coinbase ? OUCH !!! When ?

[grau]

Jeff - BitPay
Gavin - Coinbase
Mike - Circle

Does this remain a community project?

Gavin joined coinbase ? OUCH !!! When ?

http://blog.coinbase.com/post/69775463031/coinbase-raises-25-million-from-andreessen-horowitz
"Separately, we’re also very pleased to share that Gavin Andresen has joined Coinbase as an advisor. "

[BitCoinDream]

Jeff - BitPay
Gavin - Coinbase
Mike - Circle

Does this remain a community project?

Gavin joined coinbase ? OUCH !!! When ?

http://blog.coinbase.com/post/69775463031/coinbase-raises-25-million-from-andreessen-horowitz
"Separately, we’re also very pleased to share that Gavin Andresen has joined Coinbase as an advisor. "

Oh I missed it. So epicentre of Bitcoin is moving from Japan to USA. China missed the boat 

Neways, is this Andreessen Horowitz Gavin Andresen's family business ? They are so similar in name !!!

[franky1]

company and mining monopolised?

i dont think so. there is nothing stopping anyone setting up their own competitive companies or mining pools.
the problem i see is that the bitcoin community is filled too much by the young and unenergised. basically too many basement dwellers who would rather sit back and wait for others to do stuff instead of launching new projects themselves.

bitcoin is at the moment like the 1900's with very little industry and no competition. so if you dont like the fact that there is only one service that everyone uses.. then make a new service.

[grau]

company and mining monopolised?

In contrary. The monopoly of the core team is just breaking down, to be replaced by an oligopoly of those secure access to the team.

[RodeoX]

And what is stopping any of you from becoming the "center" of bitcoin? Nothing. There is no such thing as bitcoin's center. It is open source and you are free to start your own dev team and go to town.

[bluemeanie1]

company and mining monopolised?

i dont think so. there is nothing stopping anyone setting up their own competitive companies or mining pools.
the problem i see is that the bitcoin community is filled too much by the young and unenergised. basically too many basement dwellers who would rather sit back and wait for others to do stuff instead of launching new projects themselves.

bitcoin is at the moment like the 1900's with very little industry and no competition. so if you dont like the fact that there is only one service that everyone uses.. then make a new service.

everything you've said here is misleading.  where shall I start?

there is nothing stopping anyone setting up their own competitive companies or mining pools.

nothing except for everything.  No one is going to get into mining unless it's profitable.  It's only profitable if you have exclusive deals or ownership in the ASIC biz.

bitcoin community is filled too much by the young and unenergised.

on the contrary, it's filled with commercialized efforts that centralize everything, patent everything, and corner markets on everything.  There are few opportunities left in this area.

I'm not even sure what the remaining benefit is to using bitcoin for the average user... its COOL?  It certainly isn't cheap, it's not very reliable, it's not fast.  All of these things are likely to get worse.

[bluemeanie1]

company and mining monopolised?

In contrary. The monopoly of the core team is just breaking down, to be replaced by an oligopoly of those secure access to the team.

certainly this authority and privilege are a commodity that can, and has, been marketed.

And what is stopping any of you from becoming the "center" of bitcoin? Nothing. There is no such thing as bitcoin's center. It is open source and you are free to start your own dev team and go to town.

this seems to be the image that the emergent oligopoly wishes to preserve.

[Jan]

Really, what is the problem here?
I think it is fantastic that companies in in the bitcoin space fund developers to improve bitcoin.
We have seen this with other open source projects over the years. Let me mention Linux as an example.
If you have a profitable bitcoin business I would expect you to care so much for bitcoin that you would fund it's development.
We need to free as many brains as possible from lame day time jobs, so they can help us all by improving bitcoin.

[bluemeanie1]

Really, what is the problem here?
I think it is fantastic that companies in in the bitcoin space fund developers to improve bitcoin.
We have seen this with other open source projects over the years. Let me mention Linux as an example.
If you have a profitable bitcoin business I would expect you to care so much for bitcoin that you would fund it's development.
We need to free as many brains as possible from lame day time jobs, so they can help us all by improving bitcoin.

the problem is: what needs are these various projects serving?

we can't just applaud every single technology that couples itself to Bitcoin as 'good for bitcoin'.

as for your example:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_controversies

[Peter R]

company and mining monopolised?

i dont think so. there is nothing stopping anyone setting up their own competitive companies or mining pools.
the problem i see is that the bitcoin community is filled too much by the young and unenergised. basically too many basement dwellers who would rather sit back and wait for others to do stuff instead of launching new projects themselves.

bitcoin is at the moment like the 1900's with very little industry and no competition. so if you dont like the fact that there is only one service that everyone uses.. then make a new service.

+1

Bitcoin is a virtual gold rush right now.  There are so many opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship that it's hard to sleep at night.  

The people you mentioned (Jeff, Gavin and Mike) working for the bigger players in bitcoin just makes sense.  If you're a well-funded start-up, why not hire talented and experienced people like this?  If you are a bitcoin core developer, why not help out these promising companies?

If YOU have a good idea in bitcoin just do it!

[bluemeanie1]

as another example, there was a 'meetup group' going on in NYC.  Basically the idea of the meetup was to bring people together to discuss bitcoin.  Literally within weeks of this group gaining any ground, (at least one) of the founders was ready to cash out.  He took the TRUST that the community instilled in him(how little and insignificant it was) and attempted to act as a gatekeeper for all 'talent' on Bitcoin in NYC.  He didn't accomplish this, instead he just got a lot of people angry.

There's a delicate balance of community building and profiteering here.  I don't see the tried-and-true bitcoin people making money off these companies, instead I see latecomer BS artists telling us they are 'thought leaders' and selling us gadgets and web sites.

[bluemeanie1]

Bitcoin is a virtual gold rush right now.  There are so many opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship that it's hard to sleep at night.  

there's a lot of opportunities to exploit people's naivete, assumptions and ignorance(coupled to sheer greed) regarding this technology.

[Peter R]

Bitcoin is a virtual gold rush right now.  There are so many opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship that it's hard to sleep at night.  

there's a lot of opportunities to exploit people's naivete, assumptions and ignorance(coupled to sheer greed) regarding this technology.

I agree and that's why the term "virtual gold rush" is appropriate.  There is great promise of rewards but be careful of the risks involved.

In any case, it's an exciting time to be involved in bitcoin.   

[bluemeanie1]

Bitcoin is a virtual gold rush right now.  There are so many opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship that it's hard to sleep at night.  

there's a lot of opportunities to exploit people's naivete, assumptions and ignorance(coupled to sheer greed) regarding this technology.

I agree and that's why the term "virtual gold rush" is appropriate.  There is great promise of rewards but be careful of the risks involved.

In any case, it's an exciting time to be involved in bitcoin.    

what required is a restatement of the goals here.  It was supposed to be a PEER TO PEER currency.  IT wasnt supposed to have blacklists, it wasn't supposed to have a monopoly of processor banks, even the concept of 'mining pools' seems to have been out of the scope of the initial design.  Some of these other supposed leaders suggesting we come international accords regarding Bitcoin?  this is not fulfilling the original goals of this software, actually it's fulfilling the goals of the groups this software was meant to circumvent.  Unfortunately, not enough people see that right now, but plenty will eventually.

reconsider what we currently have from a user perspective... we have 1) a great deal of centralization 2) increasing tx fees 3) unclear valuation 4) unreliability.

[whtchocla7e]

Unfortunately, not enough people see that right now, but plenty will eventually.

Very true.

[mmitech]

Really, what is the problem here?
I think it is fantastic that companies in in the bitcoin space fund developers to improve bitcoin.
We have seen this with other open source projects over the years. Let me mention Linux as an example.
If you have a profitable bitcoin business I would expect you to care so much for bitcoin that you would fund it's development.
We need to free as many brains as possible from lame day time jobs, so they can help us all by improving bitcoin.

+1
I agree with that, in a simple word "motivation", when Devs are offered time and motivated financially their productivity will be much better... we saw that happens in many projects and I am glad to see this happening with Bitcoin.

 

[bluemeanie1]

Really, what is the problem here?
I think it is fantastic that companies in in the bitcoin space fund developers to improve bitcoin.
We have seen this with other open source projects over the years. Let me mention Linux as an example.
If you have a profitable bitcoin business I would expect you to care so much for bitcoin that you would fund it's development.
We need to free as many brains as possible from lame day time jobs, so they can help us all by improving bitcoin.

+1
I agree with that, in a simple word "motivation", when Devs are offered time and motivated financially their productivity will be much better... we saw that happens in many projects and I am glad to see this happening with Bitcoin.

 

up until a certain degree when you have so much commercialization that the technology ceases to be attractive to the average person.  In the case of bitcoin it's even more accentuated, because it itself is(an grossly overvalued) commodity.