It's time to divorce ourselves the bitcoin foundation

[spooderman]

I am reminded of a debate between Steven Fry and Christopher Hitchens versus Ann Widdecomb and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The question is: "Is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world?"

After trouncing the opposition entirely (not hard to do) Steven Fry (against the motion obviously) asks, "What are you for?"

This seems relevant now.

We don't need spokespersons. We cannot afford to have a centralized point of failure. Satoshi understood this.

[keithers]

I have never thought of this until you brought it up. You raise a valid point, but i think it is important to have some of the more prominent figures representing the community. It hasn't been going well at all lately, but i think the pros outweigh the cons in having a foundation.  Funny thing is I half agree with you though.

[spooderman]

They had Mark as a gold member......

[5thStreetResearch]

it should just be completely disbanded at this point.  

[TheFootMan]

I think the core devs should have their own donation fund, managed say by Gavin. What do we need the Bitcoin Foundation for?

Mark, Vessenes, Shrem - they're all a bunch of crooks.

Why don't those who honestly believe in bitcoin go together and distance themselves from these thiefs and conmen?

[5thStreetResearch]

I think the core devs should have their own donation fund, managed say by Gavin. What do we need the Bitcoin Foundation for?

Mark, Vessenes, Shrem - they're all a bunch of crooks.

Why don't those who honestly believe in bitcoin go together and distance themselves from these thiefs and conmen?

agreed 100%

[Kluge]

Heh. Well, tBF is hardly the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church had (and has, to a much, much, much lesser degree) a ton of influence. tBF is a central place lazy press members sometimes go when they want quotes from "a Bitcoin person." It doesn't appear to mount legal defenses or otherwise uniquely assist users (if you just want to talk to Marco Santori, you can shoot him a PM through the forum), but is more of an "elite"-shared microphone with a decent amplifier. They do host and maybe funded some unique online bitcoin tools (they host information from a node crawler I can't remember the name of). If they wanted to impress me, I should've been made aware of efforts to help Casascius fight the threat letter, filings to challenge government laws banning (in full or in part) bitcoin transactions and exchanges, and education projects along with tangible results of those projects. I've neither seen nor heard about these, so I can only assume they didn't happen, true or not.

I can understand why relatively large businesses would want something to share together, both for funding and speaking, but there appears to be no benefit to regular users and small business operators who join. Maybe there's intent, but I haven't noticed results in its year and a half of existence. After losing some of their big corporate names (Shrem & Karpeles), it seems plausible that tBF will organically lose steam without any community efforts to knock it down, for better or worse.... maybe it just turns into the Roger Ver Foundation.

[justusranvier]

maybe it just turns into the Roger Ver Foundation.

I'd actually donate to that one if it existed.

[The_Gloomfrost]

Why do you even care? Make up your own mind who you think is "credible" and who you trust. If some group calls themselves the "Bitcoin Foundation" says something - why do you care if it's any different than "Mr. Bitcoin God"? If they failed you or you disagree, don't listen to them.

Just like if a new bitcoin client is released and you don't like or agree with the changes - stay on the old one and mine your own fork, hope that others agree.

[Kluge]

maybe it just turns into the Roger Ver Foundation.

I'd actually donate to that one if it existed.

It'd be pretty cool to see a Ver Foundation and a Voorhees Foundation competing with each other to kick the most ass. Maybe Ver and Voorhees each provide the same level of funding to the organization but aren't allowed to interact with it outside providing that base monthly funding (maybe $10k) and to hire employees. To attract donors, Foundation employees publish quarterly reports trying to quantify the benefits of their actions. Maybe they have specific quarterly contests with each other; who can overturn the most government bans on bitcoin transactions?; who can get the most governments to explicitly permit bitcoin transactions?; who can bring on the most multi-million dollar companies into the crypto fold?; who can bring the largest number of individuals to a crypto conference?

[spooderman]

Why do you even care? Make up your own mind who you think is "credible" and who you trust. If some group calls themselves the "Bitcoin Foundation" says something - why do you care if it's any different than "Mr. Bitcoin God"? If they failed you or you disagree, don't listen to them.

Just like if a new bitcoin client is released and you don't like or agree with the changes - stay on the old one and mine your own fork, hope that others agree.

yes, I would potentially do that. But following your logic, I would not be able to promote my reasoning for forking on here, thus how would I get anyone else to agree? I am essentially trying to add weight to the "thought-fork" away from tolerance of so called figure heads and protective entities within our community.

[Slingshot]

I think the core devs should have their own donation fund, managed say by Gavin. What do we need the Bitcoin Foundation for?

Mark, Vessenes, Shrem - they're all a bunch of crooks.

Why don't those who honestly believe in bitcoin go together and distance themselves from these thieves and con men?

+1

 And possibly have a minimal forced transaction fee added to every transaction to support this core devs group so they can dedicate themselves on a full time basis with competitive salary and benefits commensurate to their talents.

[TheFootMan]

Just to weigh in with some positives:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/752-the-good-and-useful-things-the-foundation-has-done-for-us-members-compiled-by-dr-brian-goss/

It's easy to just criticize.

[BittBurger]

it should just be completely disbanded at this point.  

This may sound extreme, but he's right.  

Bitcoin is not a centralized organization.  And while it would be nice to have a group representing it, this is nothing more than an ego trip for those running the organization.

No offense to those at the Bitcoin Foundation who are all good people I am sure.

But its almost like "first guy to say he made a foundation for bitcoin wins!"  There's no meaning to it.  Only a point of weakness is introduced.

Bitcoin is the epitome of decentralization, and their thought was to create a centralized foundation for it.  Makes no sense to me.

Just to weigh in with some positives:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/752-the-good-and-useful-things-the-foundation-has-done-for-us-members-compiled-by-dr-brian-goss/

It's easy to just criticize.

One might say that all of these things could have been done by the community and the various innovators and startups.

-B-

[_Miracle]

Well...get to coding folks?
I appreciate the foundation.

[Kluge]

Just to weigh in with some positives:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/752-the-good-and-useful-things-the-foundation-has-done-for-us-members-compiled-by-dr-brian-goss/

It's easy to just criticize.

Gosh, that list almost seems targeted at something. Thanks. Easy to forget what all's been done when things move so quickly.

[TheFootMan]

It's interesting to not that the debacle with MtGox, a foundation gold member, has spured no preemptive action from the foundation, with the result of the apparent loss of substantional monetary value  for many members of the community.

However, when the business interests of the most resourceful members of the foundation is threatened, they act very swiftly:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=484

This is a bit sad, as resourceful people really should help and look after those less resourceful. While the foundation is not legally obliged to intervene with situations like MtGox, I'm sure that exactly such situation is where we'd like to have a foundation with various expertise intervene and help.

While there were many warning signals in regards to MtGox, there were a lot of naive users caught out in this situation. If The Foundation had agressively approached MtGox demanding clarification on central issues, the deficit could've been noticed earlier, and the whole current situation could've been avoided.

Perhaps this is the time to draft a set of best business practises for exchanges in the bitcoin community. It could then be voluntary for exchanges to follow this, and for those who did, they could be listed as 'approved exchanges' or similar.

This would not be failsafe, but it could be a step in the right direction.

As a minimum:

- Independent audits on infrastructure security (hw/sw)
- Indepdent financial audits
- Ringfencing of client funds.
- No frontrunning or otherwise unethical manipulation of inhouse trading engine.

There could as well be various grades of compliance. Ie. compliance level 1, 2 and 3. Where a 3-star compliance level ensured that the exchange operated according to the highest standards set forth in the 'regulative draft'.

I think the bitcoin community is able to 'self police' and do not need governmental regulation apart from the existing AML/KYC procedures.

[ISAWHIM]

Yea, and churches take millions and give hundreds to soup-kitchens... so what...

Foundation fail... Friends helping friends and ad-space... that is all it is.

Being on the board, and paying yourself your own fees, is kind-of ass anyways... That is like a CEO voting to give himself a raise. (Like banks do, with our money.)

[Thedomone15]

I was listening to Charlie Shrem on Let's Talk Bitcoin and he was badmouthing the foundation too.  It seems like some people of poor character on there..not all of them, but far too many.

[TheFootMan]

The foundation has failed. It knew of the problems and ignored them.

Now there are potentially a million angry Bitcoin users that are not aligned with movement towards a decentralized crypto currency.
Those voices will multiply as they spread their experience to friends and their governments. This is a problem for the entire ecosystem. It will require a solution at that level to stem the anger.
The ecosystem is controlled by the miners and they have as much to lose, if not more, when the Bitcoin becomes worthless. Mark Karpeles will probably never repay what has been lost. However, the damage will continue to spread.

I propose that miners join together and set aside a small amount of their transfer fee to a general fund. This fund would be used to bring the MtGox users back into the community and make them whole over time. If we do not, I suspect that losses will spread to everyone who thought they had something of value in their Bitcoins.

Of course, this would have to go hand in hand with the community calling out any bad actors in the future, as well as, addressing the need to have private wallets at any exchange.

Xtib

source: https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/741-mtgox-bitcoin-foundation-crises-management/

Todd Erickson
Member, Regulatory Affairs\Education Committee

Lifetime
Pip
227 posts
LocationNorth Carolina
Posted 20 February 2014 - 05:12 PM
Cypress was a Crisis - Mt Gox is just inconvenient.

Digital Currencies are NOT regulated Financial Intermediaries. Bitcoin is regulated in the same manner as World of Warcraft gold is, so truly it is Caveat Emptor.

The Foundation also, is not in any danger. There has been no allegations or evidence of malice and no illegal activity.

And finally - Bitcoin as a currency, is also not in any danger. The price of Bitcoin is still hundreds of times better than it was just a year ago and transaction volume is better than ever.

No Bitcoin exchange in operation today insures or guarantee's "the value of your Bitcoins".  If anyone wants to have their investment protected and wants regulatory recourse, then they can put their money in a Bank and sleep well at night that the Government is protecting your money (well, usually)

and YES, I have Bitcoins at Mt Gox too.

tell it to the naive firstimers that lost a lot that gox is just inconvenient