2014-01-17 Venture Beat - How ... could catalyze a new digital civilization

[StarfishPrime]

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/17/iamsatoshi-how-an-alliance-of-bitcoin-traders-could-catalyze-a-new-digital-civilization/

A thought provoking article on the long term implications of bitcoin - proposing an active, global alliance to promote worldwide adoption.

[cr1776]

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/17/iamsatoshi-how-an-alliance-of-bitcoin-traders-could-catalyze-a-new-digital-civilization/

A thought provoking article on the long term implications of bitcoin - proposing an active, global alliance to promote worldwide adoption.

The implications portion was interesting, I agree.

They lost me with the proposal that want to put tax the exchanges to raise money to fund a foundation that will promote bitcoin in a transparent way. 

Personally, I don't like the forced centralization idea - never mind the fact that it would be nearly impossible to get all exchanges to do it. Fine, start another foundation, get people to join voluntarily and let everyone else promote bitcoin in their own way. 

Bitcoin is about p2p decentralization and people having the freedom to join others who believe the same.

Thanks for posting that - a worthwhile read.

[Lethn]

I believe the short version is that what this person is proposing is Freicoin where a percentage of the cryptocurrency is given to the the people holding the code, to each their own, we are now in a free market, it's nothing new or revolutionary though.

[prophetx]

i think the alliance if it exists should be of distributed decentralized molecular groups

[empoweoqwj]

Decent article but lost me at "The Satoshi Nakamoto Foundation should support and promote all legitimate cryptocurrencies, not just Bitcoins"

Who would define "legitimate"?

[jinni]

i think the alliance if it exists should be of distributed decentralized molecular groups

This. We don't need a centralized foundation. Maybe Bitfunder (or another crowdfunding site) can fund specific projects/causes as the community deems it necessary. Of course, the benefit of a foundation is that one could build up a war chest for possible future use.

[empoweoqwj]

i think the alliance if it exists should be of distributed decentralized molecular groups

This. We don't need a centralized foundation. Maybe Bitfunder (or another crowdfunding site) can fund specific projects/causes as the community deems it necessary. Of course, the benefit of a foundation is that one could build up a war chest for possible future use.

I don't think we need any new foundations, especially ones with 'war chests' - who is going to pay for this? bitcoin should be as 'light' as possible.

[TraderTimm]

"Foundations" are a waste of time.

Not to the ones collecting the money and spending it, of course. My problem with these try-hards are multiple in origin:

1.) They blew our "cover" early, causing a slow and bureaucratic monster to notice Bitcoin much sooner than they would've on their own.

2.) They think that by cozying up to the government, they're doing us all this big favor - when in reality they're just accelerating the process of being co-opted themselves, which brings with it the attendant problems of the government trying to "control" Bitcoin.

3.) They've also presented themselves as a large target for persecution when the government monster finally understands that Bitcoin doesn't give two shits about regulations or sovereign desires. Perhaps one could say this is karma for their ignorance, but it still is a problem they'll have to deal with.

4.) By offering to be the central "voice" of Bitcoin, their ill-advised ideas of how to suck up to government controls will diminish the ability of Bitcoin users in those countries to use Bitcoin as freely as they could otherwise. And no, being able to use Bitcoin to get takeout pizza or buy e-books isn't what I'm fucking talking about.

In short, its a bumbling short-sighted ego trip that is trying to be a centralized representative of a system that doesn't need it. Its about as absurd as claiming to speak for all of the internet -- which is completely ridiculous.

[callem]

The idea of a foundation funded by some sort of transaction fee is even worse than the idea of a foundation closely coupled with the core developers (which we already have).

The discussion of potential cryptocurrency impact on society was interesting though.

[bitbouillion]

In order to work Bitcoin does not a central monopoly organization to influence, promote, lobby, protect, defend etc. etc.. That would be the end of decentralization and finally kill Bitcoin.

There are already enough efforts to promote Bitcoin by the competing commercial infrastructure operators, which are funded by their own business activities and not by a central Bitcoin "tax".

His idea sounds like "big government" and is in my opinion completely contrary to the Bitcoin idea.

[empoweoqwj]

"Foundations" are a waste of time.

Not to the ones collecting the money and spending it, of course. My problem with these try-hards are multiple in origin:

1.) They blew our "cover" early, causing a slow and bureaucratic monster to notice Bitcoin much sooner than they would've on their own.

2.) They think that by cozying up to the government, they're doing us all this big favor - when in reality they're just accelerating the process of being co-opted themselves, which brings with it the attendant problems of the government trying to "control" Bitcoin.

3.) They've also presented themselves as a large target for persecution when the government monster finally understands that Bitcoin doesn't give two shits about regulations or sovereign desires. Perhaps one could say this is karma for their ignorance, but it still is a problem they'll have to deal with.

4.) By offering to be the central "voice" of Bitcoin, their ill-advised ideas of how to suck up to government controls will diminish the ability of Bitcoin users in those countries to use Bitcoin as freely as they could otherwise. And no, being able to use Bitcoin to get takeout pizza or buy e-books isn't what I'm fucking talking about.

In short, its a bumbling short-sighted ego trip that is trying to be a centralized representative of a system that doesn't need it. Its about as absurd as claiming to speak for all of the internet -- which is completely ridiculous.

Couldn't agree more. There is just no need for it, starts to sound like we would need a "bitcoin tax" - the very idea makes me shudder.