What does bitcoin foundation do?

[zhangweiwu]

Since it gets a lot of media coverage recently, the things apparent are:

- Accepting donation through MtGox and their website
- Getting media coverage of member arrest without much response
- Response strongly against MtGox on Transaction Malleability

I had to look up what it does, in order to know better what I have invested. Predicting the reaction (or lack of it) of an important media news source is the homework of a speculator.

In fact I found very little what the foundation does. It seems although it receives a lot of media coverage, it react very little to the outside world.

The things I would assume bitcoin foundation do would be:

- Issue whitepapers about security flaws. It helps becalm investors.
- Maintain co-operation with important entities (MtGox) and help them with PR in order to reduce damage to bitcoin image. E.g. back entities from false accusation if can be confirmed.
- Establish a fund police to bail-out certain specific occassions - not necessarily by issuing more money but with a smarter framework, e.g. union of members of extremely large wallet to help each other.
- Create blacklist of addresses to make known heist harder to cash out, or effectivley force large scale stolen money out of circulation.
- Produce other community services, e.g. in the recent trouble, publish a list of exchanges that have correct implementation against TM hack, so that 1) other exchanges are less harmed with MtGox incident; 2) investors who wish to enter the market in the hard time (when we need them most) know where to invest.

It seems bitcoin foundation maintains the anarchism idea popular in opensource projects (e.g. libav project, where there is no leader), by doing nothing at all, or prevent a leading management to exist. In this case it perhaps better be named 'bitcoin no-foundation' and it perhaps can still receive as much donation as it were before, for there are people who wish to donate to maintain  'toal freedom'.

I only studied the foundation for one day, so this is a quick note. Criticism welcome, because that helps my homework.

A glance over their forum a few posts pops up to my eyes:

-  What would you think about removing temporairly MtGox as a gold member?
- Actions against environmental Issues of Mining
- We must advocate against a rushed protocol change

The second is about an action to take, the tone of the first and last post is not about what to do, but about what not to do - e.g. not engaging a problem but evading one (it's not our problem). They don't seem to realize since they claimed protecting bitcoin, every bitcoin problem is a foundation problem, only differ on size. Even if fighting against MtGox is the best interest of bitcoin, it should always and frequently be declared so, lest people think Bitcoin foundatin does nothing. It all look immature to me.

When I wonder why there are not many posts, I realized the forum has no registration link, later I realized I can be a member by paying a sum (measured in USD), so I guess if I pay I can post there, right?

[erik777]

We need a p2p "foundation" -- a foundation where the members exist only in p2p. 

[zhangweiwu]

We need a p2p "foundation" -- a foundation where the members exist only in p2p.  

Are you mocking or offering an explanation? There are lots of reasons that currency cannot be purely p2p. First, information is not balanced, some p2p member knows more than you do, and second: resource, bitcoin foundation can get media outlet post their announcement when you can't. and last: human weakness (needs a garantee from someone instead of relying on their own judgement - the backdrop of existance of strong governments like the China government and U.S. govermnet). You cannot correct these 3 major design issue (feature or flaw) with a single patch (bitcoin), you need to live with these features. In other words, if you can't switch away from Microsoft Windows, then you get to install anti-virus software.

[erik777]

There are lots of reasons that currency cannot be purely p2p. First, information is not balanced, some p2p member knows more than you do

Your premise is that a central organization ("the foundation") and a decentralized currency are one and the same. 

There are and will always be centralized currencies created by centralized entities.  Bitcoin is not one of them.  Because of Bitcoin, there will always be decentralized currencies. 

Your concerns aren't with the foundation, but with the decentralized nature of bitcoin.

[farlack]

As far as I know they don't do anything. As far as I'm aware they just appointed themselves the "foundation" and collected donations for a membership.

[zhangweiwu]

There are lots of reasons that currency cannot be purely p2p. First, information is not balanced, some p2p member knows more than you do

Your premise is that a central organization ("the foundation") and a decentralized currency are one and the same.  

There are and will always be centralized currencies created by centralized entities.  Bitcoin is not one of them.  Because of Bitcoin, there will always be decentralized currencies.  

Your concerns aren't with the foundation, but with the decentralized nature of bitcoin.

Okay, you found a bug in the question, so you don't provide arguements unless the question is correct, right? Investing since 2011, I am not blind of the p2p nature of the currency and the fact bitcoin foundation did not invent or manage the currency. Hence I change my post to the following so you can properly answe:

There are lots of reasons that currency cannot be purely p2p the foundation cannot be p2p like the currency do. First, information is not balanced, some p2p member knows more than you do, and second: resource, bitcoin foundation can get media outlet post their announcement when you can't. and last: human weakness (needs a garantee from someone instead of relying on their own judgement - the backdrop of existance of strong governments like the China government and U.S. govermnet). You cannot correct major design issue (feature or flaw) with a single patch (bitcoin), you need to live with these features thus you need to run a non-p2p foundation.

[zhangweiwu]

As far as I know they don't do anything. As far as I'm aware they just appointed themselves the "foundation" and collected donations for a membership.

Then it gets very unfair share of media coverage. News from the foundation affects the market, but they don't do anything to affect bitcoin except immature PR. This is far from protecting bitcoin.

[justusranvier]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNcM4YjzgHY

[cryptoanarchist]

Bitcoin Foundation is a way for the good ole' boys club to self appoint themselves as spokespeople - that simple.

[zhangweiwu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNcM4YjzgHY

What... ! Sending a youtube link to a Chinese is trouble some enough (our government bans it), and after some struggle I finally get the video, and it is someone saying "Office Space - What Would You Say .. You Do Here" -- you could have said that. Oh I envy the rest of the world who can use a video to save the typing...

[justusranvier]

What... ! Sending a youtube link to a Chinese is trouble some enough (our government bans it), and after some struggle I finally get the video, and it is someone saying "Office Space - What Would You Say .. You Do Here" -- you could have said that. Oh I envy the rest of the world who can use a video to save the typing...

Sorry about that.

For the English-speaking crowd, especially the demographics who tend to post at this site, quoting that film is a particularly efficient means of communication.

[erik777]

What... ! Sending a youtube link to a Chinese is trouble some enough (our government bans it), and after some struggle I finally get the video, and it is someone saying "Office Space - What Would You Say .. You Do Here" -- you could have said that. Oh I envy the rest of the world who can use a video to save the typing...

Sorry about that.

For the English-speaking crowd, especially the demographics who tend to post at this site, quoting that film is a particularly efficient means of communication.

I laughed.  It was pretty good sarcasm.  Thank you, Justin Beaver! 

Zhang, that was a context thing.  It's just a clip from a funny movie. 

But, now that I understand where you're coming from, the point I'm making is that the creation of a "foundation" seems to many to be a knee-jerk  reaction -- a reaction based on the only response people know.  over time, i think democratic entities will become enabled due to p2p technology.  we're a way's off.  bitcoin is helping people to understand that p2p is more than file sharing.  but, it won't become unfathomable at some point for people to be empowered in increasing ways by it.  i think that's the driver that motivates many.  it's a "stick it to the man" technology.

"stick it to the man" is an american phrase that, in your terms, would mean "power to the people".  the people being real people, not an entity claiming to represent them like a foundation or a government. 

one thing i've learned is that while we try to make the world a better place, human nature does not change.  we're all tempted by egos and power.  so, naturally, entities will try to arise in nearly every context to give power to a few over many.  no point in hating them because they are no different than you or I.  we may only, from one moment to the next, be better at letting the better side of us conquer the other side.  that is, we are all capable of love and compassion, too. 

[zhangweiwu]

- Create blacklist of addresses to make known heist harder to cash out, or effectivley force large scale stolen money out of circulation.

I was wrong. More homework showed bitcoin foundation tried to do that:
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-tracking-proposal-divides-bitcoin-community/

The strong objection of blacklisting theif's bitcoin address is I guess two-fold.

First, the community wish to maintain anonymous nature of the network at the cost of tolerating thefts, or accept losing some justice to get some freedom, like the early U.S. (There are so many bad stories of U.S. outside of U.S. - it's hard to see if now is better).

Second, the question is who should be the judge. The foundation has not done enough positive things to let the community believe that when they do negative action it is in the postive interest. If the foundation did a lot of services (there are a lot missing!) since it receives donation, the comunity may be softened a bit. But even though there lack a framework to produce a judge.

Not sure if my reading is correct.

[erik777]

- Create blacklist of addresses to make known heist harder to cash out, or effectivley force large scale stolen money out of circulation.

I was wrong. More homework showed bitcoin foundation tried to do that:
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-tracking-proposal-divides-bitcoin-community/

The strong objection of blacklisting theif's bitcoin address is I guess two-fold.

First, the community wish to maintain anonymous nature of the network at the cost of tolerating thefts, or accept losing some justice to get some freedom, like the early U.S. (There are so many bad stories of U.S. outside of U.S. - it's hard to see if now is better)

Second, the foundation has not done enough positive things to let the community believe that when they do negative action it is in the postive interest. If the foundation did a lot of services (there are a lot missing!) since it receives donation, the comunity may be softened a bit.

Not sure if my reading is correct.

That sums it up.  A few comments.  

1> we don't just get freedom being a currency that does no invalidate based on history.  it is about a currency being a currency.  if i hand you a dollar, you need to know it is worth a dollar. but, if there's a chance that the dollar once worked, but is no longer a valid dollar because it was stolen by someone before i had it, then the dollar is no longer worth a dollar to you.  if there's a 10% chance it is an invalid dollar, then it's only worth 90% of a dollar to you, because that's the odds it is valid.  currency must be fungible.  a dollar must be a dollar no matter what its history.  

2>  if you begin invalidation, then you create power structures that are no longer decentralized, because someone has to decide which coin needs to be invalidated, and which was doesn't.  you just eliminated the decentralized nature of the currency, which requires another decentralized currency to take its place.  otherwise, bad powers will arise and do stupid things in addition to erasing fungibility, like stopping mothers from getting $150 to her son for his baby's diapers.  

3> have you heard about the good stories resulting from US freedom?