Domain name update

[theymos]

Satoshi created both bitcoin.org and this forum, which was originally at bitcoin.org/smf. Later, the forum got its own domain name, but due to this history, bitcoin.org and bitcointalk.org have traditionally been linked, and for quite some time Cøbra and I have together managed the domain names. However, Cøbra has never had much involvement in bitcointalk.org's operation, and I haven't involved myself in bitcoin.org for a couple of years, so the linkage between the two no longer really made made any sense. Therefore, we decided to separate the domains: I no longer have any access to the bitcoin.org domain name, and Cøbra no longer has any access to the bitcointalk.org domain name. The two sites should be viewed as totally separate, which in practice they have been for years.

There will be no changes whatsoever on bitcointalk.org due to this, and I'd assume that the same will be true of bitcoin.org. The bitcoin.org open-source project has been advancing steadily, and I hope and expect that it will continue to do so thanks to the efforts of its contributors.

Thanks to Cøbra for handling much of bitcointalk.org's domain-name-related work in the past.

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[jackg]

To clairfy is there a co-ownership of both domains still or is one just owned by a single entity from now on?

I know Cobra was holding both domains in the past, has bitcointalk.org just been transferred to you and that's it or is it controlled by an additional pool of people?

[Coyster]

To clairfy is there a co-ownership of both domains still or is one just owned by a single entity from now on?

Theymos owns bitcointalk.org, Cobra owns bitcoin.org, neither of them(theymos and cobra)has access to the domain name owned by the other.

<...Therefore, we decided to separate the domains: I no longer have any access to the bitcoin.org domain name, and Cøbra no longer has any access to the bitcointalk.org domain name. The two sites should be viewed as totally separate, which in practice they have been for years.

[jackg]

To clairfy is there a co-ownership of both domains still or is one just owned by a single entity from now on?

Theymos owns bitcointalk.org, Cobra owns bitcoin.org, neither of them(theymos and cobra)has access to the domain name owned by the other.

No I meant more if it's possible to have a co-ownership here? Maybe Theymos, OG and hilarious or something - since there was a co-ownership in the past. (or theymos and cyrus)

If the co ownership was merely so that each could add different functionalities then this is unneccesary but if it was to protect the integrity of the domain and allow for it to be inherited wherever neccessary.

[BIT-BENDER]

No I meant more if it's possible to have a co-ownership here? Maybe Theymos, OG and hilarious or something - since there was a co-ownership in the past. (or theymos and cyrus)

If there was co-ownership it would be on the post or added, the message was to inform us about the separation of Bitcoin.org domain and Bitcointalk.org domain.
And the forum would still remain the same

There will be no changes whatsoever on bitcointalk.org due to this, and I'd assume that the same will be true of bitcoin.org.

[Timelord2o67]

You're all wasting your time asking theymos. As owner he can do what he wants with the forum. As I've found out before, you can ask a question in one of these missives and he just won't answer. He's made a decision and you may as well respect it as he doesn't usually clarify. (Look at his activity over the last.year or so)

[notblox1]

This is a good thing.
I hope that now we can expect to see long awaited update for bitcointalk theme and forum software.
I would like to see that before I die if possible ...

[logfiles]

You're all wasting your time asking theymos. As owner he can do what he wants with the forum. As I've found out before, you can ask a question in one of these missives and he just won't answer. He's made a decision and you may as well respect it as he doesn't usually clarify. (Look at his activity over the last.year or so)

He does respond mate. Thou he doesn't do that for all queries, but he tries so it should deter members from asking for clarifications. Even Presidents don't answer all questions during press conferences  

This is a good thing.
I hope that now we can expect to see long awaited update for bitcointalk theme and forum software.
I would like to see that before I die if possible ...

Surely every active member would like to see the same but this small change won't change a thing about the current progress  

[shield132]

Under user's avatar, there is: News: Latest Bitcoin Core Release: <-- Will download url be changed with bitcointalk.org instead of bitcoin.org ?
I think this domain related update must be on top of website for a while to inform all users.
What you did is a little bit perplexing for users: Which website should I trust to download bitcoin core, Bitcointalk Or Bitcoin.org ?
I ask this because you even said (what if won't be? What further actions will be taken from you?):

I'd assume that the same will be true of bitcoin.org.

Ahh, I thought I would make an offer...

[gmaxwell]

I'm really sad to hear this. It seems like bitcoin faces such tremendous headwinds.

[JayJuanGee]

I'm really sad to hear this. It seems like bitcoin faces such tremendous headwinds.

Surely, I do not understand enough to understand the significance of your comments.

Do you believe that theymos and Cøbra should have attempted to maintain a connection between the sites or the operations? 

theymos does seem to be representing it as NOT a big change, but it is likely with anything that sometimes material changes will come later or be felt later if some kind of dynamics are changed including each of their having official connections versus separate operations.

[LoyceV]

Therefore, we decided to separate the domains: I no longer have any access to the bitcoin.org domain name, and Cøbra no longer has any access to the bitcointalk.org domain name. The two sites should be viewed as totally separate, which in practice they have been for years.

Did this change happen recently? Both domains were last updated on November 24 last year:

Code:

Domain Name: BITCOINTALK.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D162601474-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2019-11-24T14:01:10Z
Creation Date: 2011-06-24T05:19:00Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2029-06-24T05:19:00Z

Code:

Domain Name: BITCOIN.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D153621148-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2019-11-24T13:58:35Z
Creation Date: 2008-08-18T13:19:55Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2029-08-18T13:19:55Z

Under user's avatar, there is: News: Latest Bitcoin Core Release: <-- Will download url be changed with bitcointalk.org instead of bitcoin.org ?

I don't think so. And I wouldn't download Bitcoin Core anywhere else than Bitcoin.org BitcoinCore.org anyway.
This is better:

You shouldn't trust a particular domain name to download Bitcoin Core at all, not bitcoin.org, or bitcoincore.org, or Github. You can download Bitcoin Core from just about anywhere safely, so long as you verify the signatures are valid, something I always urge users to do. Don't trust particular domain names, ever.

I'm really sad to hear this. It seems like bitcoin faces such tremendous headwinds.

Surely, I do not understand enough to understand the significance of your comments.

I don't get it either. Please elaborate gmaxwell.

[VB1001]

It seems like bitcoin faces such tremendous headwinds.

I am also concerned about this comment, it may be a little more explicit.

[Lauda]

Next step: Cøbra to give up access to Bitcoin.org.

Do you believe that theymos and Cøbra should have attempted to maintain a connection between the sites or the operations?  

Essentially nobody trusts Cøbra except theymos and maybe a couple of bamboozled individuals. There is a reason for this, and there is a reason why many here have praised Cøbra when he has appeared here before: It is called ignorance.

I'm really sad to hear this. It seems like bitcoin faces such tremendous headwinds.

Surely, I do not understand enough to understand the significance of your comments.

I don't get it either. Please elaborate gmaxwell.

Most of the high ranking individuals on this forum today have next to no clue about anything Bitcoin related really (writing tech support answers based on what you find online is a triviality not knowledge).

Under user's avatar, there is: News: Latest Bitcoin Core Release: <-- Will download url be changed with bitcointalk.org instead of bitcoin.org ?

I don't think so. And I wouldn't download Bitcoin Core anywhere else than Bitcoin.org anyway.

Again: Wrong. You should download Bitcoin Core only from https://bitcoincore.org. Please stop giving bad information on Core related matters. Thanks.
How about the time he outed himself manipulating the public with multiple identities?

[nullius]

“Not your keys, not your coins.”

“Not your domain, not your website.”

The key difference is, of course, that a domain name is a (0) non-cryptographic identifier (1) under centralized control.  There is no avoiding that, unless you use only v3 onions, Namecoin, etc.  Still, it is critical to avoid reliance on domain names controlled by untrustworthy people such as, oh, say, Roger Ver.

E tu, Cøbra?

I'm really sad to hear this. It seems like bitcoin faces such tremendous headwinds.

Thanks.

Surely, I do not understand enough to understand the significance of your comments.

I think you get it.

I don't get it either. Please elaborate gmaxwell.

I am also concerned about this comment, it may be a little more explicit.

If he had wanted to elaborate explicitly, I think he would have.

Greg Maxwell is known for his general outspokenness.  If he is here being cryptic, I infer that he is choosing to be so.

And I wouldn't download Bitcoin Core anywhere else than Bitcoin.org anyway.

I have made the mistake of referring newbies to bitcoin-dot-org, because it is more newbie-friendly (i.e., glitzy Web 2.0 style that breaks in my browser) than good old-fashioned bitcoincore.org.

I myself will STOP DOING THAT.

For years, for my own purposes, I have depended primarily on bitcoincore.org (onion) and the Github site for code, plus bitcoin-dev and this forum for information.  Observe that the Github project links to bitcoincore.org, not bitcoin.org.

Of course, it does not matter where you get your download, if you verify the integrity of your download using strong cryptography.  But let’s start by referring people to the download site that is actually run by Core.

Please heed Lauda here.

Again: Wrong. You should download Bitcoin Core only from https://bitcoincore.org. Please stop giving bad information on Core related matters. Thanks.

How about the time he outed himself manipulating the public with multiple identities?

In fairness, I don’t think it’s ipso facto wrong to use multiple identities.  (Cypherpunk here.)  The question is of intent.

I am much more worried by his equivocation over Btrash, of which I was hereto unaware due to my having slept for almost two years.  Equivocation is always a bad sign.

[Lauda]

How about the time he outed himself manipulating the public with multiple identities?

In fairness, I don’t think it’s ipso facto wrong to use multiple identities.  (Cypherpunk here.)  The question is of intent.

I am much more worried by his equivocation over Btrash, of which I was hereto unaware due to my having slept for almost two years.  Equivocation is always a bad sign.

It was never my intention to do so, but I would strongly argue that you do not want somebody doing that (very unlikely for virtuous reasons) to be the sole owner and responsible person for Bitcoin.org. No, just no.

[JayJuanGee]

Next step: Cøbra to give up access to Bitcoin.org.

Do you believe that theymos and Cøbra should have attempted to maintain a connection between the sites or the operations?  

Essentially nobody trusts Cøbra except theymos and maybe a couple of bamboozled individuals. There is a reason for this, and there is a reason why many here have praised Cøbra when he has appeared here before: It is called ignorance.

I had kind of noticed the parts about some questionable deviance into being sympathetic into shitcoins and nonsense BIG blocker theories, but sometimes it is NOT clear about the various connections and maybe they do not matter too much in the whole scheme of things and if I feel that I am able to engage within the forum and share ideas, mostly about bitcoin, then I am good... oh and say fuck you to the shitcoiners once in a while, that tends to be a bonus..

I'm really sad to hear this. It seems like bitcoin faces such tremendous headwinds.

Thanks.

Surely, I do not understand enough to understand the significance of your comments.

I think you get it.

I am also concerned about this comment, it may be a little more explicit.

If he had wanted to elaborate explicitly, I think he would have.

Greg Maxwell is known for his general outspokenness.  If he is here being cryptic, I infer that he is choosing to be so.
 

I was going to suggest that there might have been some double meanings, and perhaps it is NOT necessary for me to attempt to explore any further.  Even with some ambiguity, I feel that matters are sufficiently less muddy for me anyhow.

[nullius]

In fairness, I don’t think it’s ipso facto wrong to use multiple identities.  (Cypherpunk here.)  The question is of intent.

It was never my intention to do so, but I would strongly argue that you do not want somebody doing that (very unlikely for virtuous reasons)

It is not a good sign when Cøbra speaks with a forked tongue, as Cøbra—in addition to that multiple-identity thing.

to be the sole owner and responsible person for Bitcoin.org.

I am much more worried by his equivocation over Btrash, of which I was hereto unaware due to my having slept for almost two years.  Equivocation is always a bad sign.

No, just no.

No argument from me here!

bitcoincore.org (onion)

verify the integrity of your download using strong cryptography

On Principled Practicality

oh and say fuck you to the shitcoiners once in a while, that tends to be a bonus.

Whereupon:

Essentially nobody trusts Cøbra except theymos and maybe a couple of bamboozled individuals. There is a reason for this, and there is a reason why many here have praised Cøbra when he has appeared here before: It is called ignorance.

I had kind of noticed the parts about some questionable deviance into being sympathetic into shitcoins and nonsense BIG blocker theories, but sometimes it is NOT clear about the various connections and maybe they do not matter too much in the whole scheme of things and if I feel that I am able to engage within the forum and share ideas, mostly about bitcoin, then I am good...

Jay, I think that it would be a real eye-opener (and ultimately beneficial to Bitcoin) if you were to do a market analysis to estimate approximately where Bitcoin should be today, were it not for the fork-attacks.  Bitcoin’s “honey badger” power in resisting those attacks has been phenomenal; but where would we be without those attacks?

I am now arguing from a business perspective.  Any reasonable prospectus on Bitcoin must disclose that Bitcoin’s biggest vulnerability is fork-attacks, also known as the trust attack.  Any reasonable investor should recognize it as in his own self-interest to fight those attacks.  The forked shitcoins falsely advertised as “Bitcoin” will, in and of themselves, never amount to anything in the long term; they are purely a negative, which harms the market as a whole by intentionally, fraudulently diluting the “Bitcoin” brand and financially diluting Bitcoin’s market capitalization. and reducing overall investor confidence in Bitcoin’s uniqueness.  To invest exclusively in the one and only genuine Bitcoin, and to defend your investment by defending Bitcoin against dilution attacks, is a strategy perfectly matched in both principle and practicality.

Whereas Cøbra is perfectly positioned to stab Bitcoin in the back.  He is a trusted party for a vital public relations channel—one to which such well-intended people as LoyceV (and unfortunately, I myself) have been referring newbies.  If Cøbra were just some guy posting his opinions on the Internet, it would be a different matter.  Whereas the trusted party exclusively controlling a website with major public mindshare is known to be at best equivocal—at best.  If he were deadly principled, it may arguably be a different matter; but he is obviously not, wherefore:

Next step: Cøbra to give up access to Bitcoin.org.

[Cøbra]

You should download Bitcoin Core only from https://bitcoincore.org. Please stop giving bad information on Core related matters. Thanks.

Unfortunately you are giving bad advice here. You shouldn't trust a particular domain name to download Bitcoin Core at all, not bitcoin.org, or bitcoincore.org, or Github. You can download Bitcoin Core from just about anywhere safely, so long as you verify the signatures are valid, something I always urge users to do. Don't trust particular domain names, ever.

I have made the mistake of referring newbies to bitcoin-dot-org, because it is more newbie-friendly (i.e., glitzy Web 2.0 style that breaks in my browser) than good old-fashioned bitcoincore.org.

I myself will STOP DOING THAT.

For years, for my own purposes, I have depended primarily on bitcoincore.org (onion) and the Github site for code, plus bitcoin-dev and this forum for information.  Observe that the Github project links to bitcoincore.org, not bitcoin.org.

I question your judgement directing newbies to bitcoincore.org, a plain site with no real information about what Bitcoin actually is. There are plenty of good resources for newbies, bitcoincore.org definitely isn't one of them. Personally I find bitcoin.org the best for newbies, since it's well established, translated into a ton of languages, guides users through a linear process to learn about Bitcoin, has a good wallet picker to point users to the right wallet based on their needs, etc.

It's funny to hint I'm malicious or untrustworthy, despite managing these domains for years without any wrongdoing. I remember when these same people were hinting at me eventually turning bitcoin.org into a Bitcoin Cash site, yet it never happened, but it didn't stop them scaremongering and screaming about it like it was inevitable. Now here people are, hinting at some vague notion of me being untrustworthy, despite me safely and without incident handing the domain over to theymos. I think this is a problem with some people on this forum in general, they just assume everyone is malicious and some scammer, unless said user is in their clique.

The truth is, while you are spinning up nonsense and trying to spook people and smearing bitcoin.org's reputation, we are educating tens of thousands of new users each day. Millions of users learn about Bitcoin with us yearly, we send so much traffic to exchanges and wallets it's ridiculous, all of which translates into expanding the Bitcoin community. When you measure the objective good Bitcoin.org has done for Bitcoin over many years, it becomes really hard to trash it. You can find flaws in the best of people, MLK was a plagiarist, Gandhi was a racist in his youth, Mandela literally blew up civilians, but judgements about people and entities are generally done by subtracting some abstract idea of total good by total bad.

With respect to Greg's comments, I don't really know what he's hinting at either. My interactions with Greg have bounced between courteous and hostile over the years. I'm really confused by his response. I would hazard a guess that he generally doesn't trust me, and that he prefers bitcoin.org be owned by someone he's associated more intimately with.

[VB1001]

I am also concerned about this comment, it may be a little more explicit.

If he had wanted to elaborate explicitly, I think he would have.

Greg Maxwell is known for his general outspokenness.  If he is here being cryptic, I infer that he is choosing to be so.

An intriguing phrase of this nature (forecast of extreme winds towards Bitcoin) in the context of this thread made by one of the most recognized people in the forum, will always require an explanation of the meaning.
For my part, I take any GMax post, comment or opinion very seriously, in any direction.

[nullius]

It's only first page and the discussion already derailed from (domain ownership to Cøbra action/reputation)

And the two subjects are not inextricably entwined when a single individual is trusted to control one of the most important Bitcoin websites, because...?

<add facepalm image here>

You should download Bitcoin Core only from https://bitcoincore.org. Please stop giving bad information on Core related matters. Thanks.

Unfortunately you are giving bad advice here. You shouldn't trust a particular domain name to download Bitcoin Core at all, not bitcoin.org, or bitcoincore.org, or Github. You can download Bitcoin Core from just about anywhere safely, so long as you verify the signatures are valid, something I always urge users to do. Don't trust particular domain names, ever.

I have made the mistake of referring newbies to bitcoin-dot-org, because it is more newbie-friendly (i.e., glitzy Web 2.0 style that breaks in my browser) than good old-fashioned bitcoincore.org.

I myself will STOP DOING THAT.

For years, for my own purposes, I have depended primarily on bitcoincore.org (onion) and the Github site for code, plus bitcoin-dev and this forum for information.  Observe that the Github project links to bitcoincore.org, not bitcoin.org.

Why did you cut from your quotation the part where I said this?

Of course, it does not matter where you get your download, if you verify the integrity of your download using strong cryptography.  But let’s start by referring people to the download site that is actually run by Core.

That was edited in; but that edit was done within a few minutes after I posted, long before your reply.  (I also wanted to add links to two of my favourite websites, Gitian and Reproducible Builds; but I figured that may overwhelm nontechnical people who are just looking for the place to download Bitcoin.)

I question your judgement directing newbies to bitcoincore.org, a plain site with no real information about what Bitcoin actually is.

It offers the best place for people to download Bitcoin Core.

As a practical matter, I have spent 20+ years fighting to get people to actually verify digital signatures, etc.  I have been pushing that particular issue since long before Bitcoin even existed.  I know that people do not actually verify things; therefore, it is important to minimize potential damage by referring people to a better source which, by the way, has better information than bitcoin-dot-org does on verifying downloads.  See the link in my above quote about verifying the integrity of downloads.

There are plenty of good resources for newbies, bitcoincore.org definitely isn't one of them. Personally I find bitcoin.org the best for newbies, since it's well established, translated into a ton of languages, guides users through a linear process to learn about Bitcoin, has a good wallet picker to point users to the right wallet based on their needs, etc.

What guarantees that bitcoin-dot-org will stay the same tomorrow?  Your personal integrity alone?

It's funny to hint I'm malicious or untrustworthy, despite managing these domains for years without any wrongdoing. I remember when these same people were hinting at me eventually turning bitcoin.org into a Bitcoin Cash site, yet it never happened, but it didn't stop them scaremongering and screaming about it like it was inevitable. Now here people are, hinting at some vague notion of me being untrustworthy, despite me safely and without incident handing the domain over to theymos. I think this is a problem with some people on this forum in general, they just assume everyone is malicious and some scammer, unless said user is in their clique.

Please advise:  If you yourself were not Cøbra, then would you trust this person to be the exclusive trusted party in control of the Bitcoin.org domain?  That is pretty much a yes-or-no question.  Be objective here.

Just e.g., from an imgur album, “Uploaded Jul 26 2018”.  Thanks to an anonymous little birdie for the tip.

The truth is, while you are spinning up nonsense and trying to spook people and smearing bitcoin.org's reputation, we are educating tens of thousands of new users each day. Millions of users learn about Bitcoin with us yearly, we send so much traffic to exchanges and wallets it's ridiculous, all of which translates into expanding the Bitcoin community. When you measure the objective good Bitcoin.org has done for Bitcoin over many years, it becomes really hard to trash it. You can find flaws in the best of people, MLK was a plagiarist, Gandhi was a racist in his youth, Mandela literally blew up civilians, but judgements about people and entities are generally done by subtracting some abstract idea of total good by total bad.

I question the judgment of anybody who thinks that that’s a good argument in your favour; but anyway...

Would you want for Bitcoin.org to be under the exclusive, trusted control of a single individual with the history of public statements that you have made, if you were not that individual?

You could do much for Bitcoin (and for your own reputation) by answering that question honestly, and acting accordingly.

With respect to Greg's comments, I don't really know what he's hinting at either. My interactions with Greg have bounced between courteous and hostile over the years. I'm really confused by his response. I would hazard a guess that he generally doesn't trust me, and that he prefers bitcoin.org be owned by someone he's associated more intimately with.

I would hazard a guess that many people would prefer for bitcoin.org to be not be exclusively under your control.

Bitcoin.org Domain Ownership #2548

https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/2548#issuecomment-408711051

chek2fire commented Jul 29, 2018

[gentlemand]

I have no particular feelings other than Cobra's proclamations seem to come from several different people depending on the time of day, or lunar cycles. I'd rather someone that erratic, or easily rented out, is nowhere near controlling an important resource.

[Lauda]

It's funny to hint I'm malicious or untrustworthy, despite managing these domains for years without any wrongdoing. I remember when these same people were hinting at me eventually turning bitcoin.org into a Bitcoin Cash site, yet it never happened, but it didn't stop them scaremongering and screaming about it like it was inevitable. Now here people are, hinting at some vague notion of me being untrustworthy, despite me safely and without incident handing the domain over to theymos. I think this is a problem with some people on this forum in general, they just assume everyone is malicious and some scammer, unless said user is in their clique.

The truth is, while you are spinning up nonsense and trying to spook people and smearing bitcoin.org's reputation, we are educating tens of thousands of new users each day. Millions of users learn about Bitcoin with us yearly, we send so much traffic to exchanges and wallets it's ridiculous, all of which translates into expanding the Bitcoin community. When you measure the objective good Bitcoin.org has done for Bitcoin over many years, it becomes really hard to trash it. You can find flaws in the best of people, MLK was a plagiarist, Gandhi was a racist in his youth, Mandela literally blew up civilians, but judgements about people and entities are generally done by subtracting some abstract idea of total good by total bad.

With respect to Greg's comments, I don't really know what he's hinting at either. My interactions with Greg have bounced between courteous and hostile over the years. I'm really confused by his response. I would hazard a guess that he generally doesn't trust me, and that he prefers bitcoin.org be owned by someone he's associated more intimately with.

How about you give up singular control to shared control by known and honest individuals such as Wladimir, harding and others? Oh right, we have tried this before and you refused. There is absolutely not a single valid good reason (opposite of evil in this context) why you would not want to do this. Purely virtuous you are, surely I am mistaken.
Not a post worth meriting.

I have no particular feelings other than Cobra's proclamations seem to come from several different people depending on the time of day, or lunar cycles. I'd rather someone that erratic, or easily rented out, is nowhere near controlling an important resource.

Correct. For quite some time I have spent giving out the following consultations to both individuals and companies (in order of severity and danger): Do not use or touch: BSV website, the Bcash website, Bitcoin.org.

[Cøbra]

I am now arguing from a business perspective.  Any reasonable prospectus on Bitcoin must disclose that Bitcoin’s biggest vulnerability is fork-attacks, also known as the trust attack.  Any reasonable investor should recognize it as in his own self-interest to fight those attacks.  The forked shitcoins falsely advertised as “Bitcoin” will, in and of themselves, never amount to anything in the long term; they are purely a negative, which harms the market as a whole by intentionally, fraudulently diluting the “Bitcoin” brand and financially diluting Bitcoin’s market capitalization. and reducing overall investor confidence in Bitcoin’s uniqueness.  To invest exclusively in the one and only genuine Bitcoin, and to defend your investment by defending Bitcoin against dilution attacks, is a strategy perfectly matched in both principle and practicality.

Whereas Cøbra is perfectly positioned to stab Bitcoin in the back.  He is a trusted party for a vital public relations channel—one to which such well-intended people as LoyceV (and unfortunately, I myself) have been referring newbies.  If Cøbra were just some guy posting his opinions on the Internet, it would be a different matter.  Whereas the trusted party exclusively controlling a website with major public mindshare is known to be at best equivocal—at best:

Wrong. You don't know what you're talking about. These forked coins are not Bitcoin's biggest vulnerability, I would actually argue that Bitcoin Cash forking hurt the big blocker movement within Bitcoin pretty badly. Bitcoin Cash basically came out of nowhere, and many big blockers eventually kind of *had* to support it, after all the hard forks they tried in Bitcoin failed. Bitcoin Cash basically removed all the extreme big blockers from the Bitcoin community, it even took Roger Ver a little while to jump on board, but once they all did, it actually made Bitcoin safer as there was no longer a group of big blockers shouting a uniform narrative from within the Bitcoin community. Without Bitcoin Cash, we would have still had these extreme big blockers in the community for a lot longer. The forked coins with "Bitcoin" in the name are mostly harmless. As far as I'm aware, basically every place where you actually can purchase Bitcoin is clear to present BTC as Bitcoin, and everything else as "Bitcoin Cash" or "Bitcoin SV", etc. Users don't ever really get confused, they quickly intuitively understand that Bitcoin is what they really want, and everything else is some kind of derivative.

The real risk to Bitcoin was in the hard fork attacks which were supported by most of the major consumer companies and exchanges and were aimed to takeover Bitcoin completely. A lot of the companies that didn't support it explicitly would have also jumped on board once the hard fork actually won. It was essentially a corporate attempt to takeover Bitcoin, with decision making power shifted from open source developers to a handful of big companies. Had they won, Bitcoin would still get developed and worked on, but ultimately it would have been them guiding the development in ways that favor their interests. Over time the community would have also shifted and been brainwashed to accept the new reality.

Bitcoin.org was one of the most extreme and hostile towards these hard fork attacks: like here https://bitcoin.org/en/posts/denounce-segwit2x, and here, https://bitcoin.org/en/posts/hard-fork-policy. I was fervently against attempts like Bitcoin XT, BU, Segwit2x, etc, anyone who was around at the time will remember how aggressive Bitcoin.org and I were. We removed wallets from companies that supported the hard forks. We removed the exchanges. We notified users with big notices at the top of the site, had I wanted to "backstab" Bitcoin this was my chance, especially when some of these companies and people approached me in private to try to "turn me", but I still was vocally hostile and did everything I could to damage them. So did theymos, and he will back me up on this that all my private communications with him showed me to be someone who above all was concerned with Bitcoin being co-opted and fought as hard as I could to resist it. And yet shamefully, people like you with no knowledge of anything are so quick to present me as a risk or threat.

Their attempts to takeover Bitcoin would probably have had a much higher probability of success had I sided with them. If you're going to convincingly take over Bitcoin maliciously, you need 3 things: the miners so you can claim to have the most secure chain and have a stable blockchain (they had 80% of the hash rate), the consumer facing companies and exchanges so you can present your hard fork as Bitcoin to users (they had a lot of the companies backing them), and key public facing resources of trust like Bitcoin.org, that give you legitimacy and an endless number of incoming users from people searching "Bitcoin" through which you can gradually rebuild a new "Bitcoin community". The fact that they didn't have that hurt them a lot. No matter how much you try to trick users, if the first Bitcoin site started by Satoshi himself, and mentioned in the whitepaper is calling your hard fork a fake, it's really hard to build legitimacy.

The real nightmare scenario is not these coins with Bitcoin in the name damaging trust, but a world in which there are disagreements over the name "Bitcoin" itself. Imagine a world in which a user learns about Bitcoin through Bitcoin.org, then goes on Coinbase and buys "Bitcoin", and then hears on Twitter or Reddit that what they bought was not Bitcoin, and then finds out about this software called Bitcoin Core and a community of people claiming *that* to be the real Bitcoin, and then finds an exchange like Bitstamp and buys something else called "Bitcoin" on there which some people say is the real Bitcoin. Then this user interacts on social media with folks, never knowing which is the real Bitcoin since at that point it would be hard to answer. We got very close to that being our world had me and others not done everything we could to damage these hard fork attempts.

And about your screenshots of the Slack chats: I don't really see anything wrong there to be honest with you. It's funny how Adam Back was so hostile to me back then about me seeing some good things in Bitcoin Cash because I always thought a blockchain that sacrifices some decentralization in order to be able to handle more transactions was kind of necessary, and now he's out there pushing Blockstream's Liquid which is literally a sidechain controlled by companies in which your BTC gets morphed and required to be held in trust by federation partners so you can get the benefit of quicker transactions since blocks are more regular.

More or less the reason people don't trust me is because I said some good things about Bitcoin Cash a while ago, that's all it boils down too. They don't actually have a reason beyond that, and their calls for me to transfer the domain to others are intended to push me out because they fear me. They'd rather have someone in control of bitcoin.org who is easier to manipulate and who bends to groupthink and public pressure more easily. They won't ever talk about how much I've done to fight off many attacks, or when people were pressuring me to hand over the domain to the Bitcoin Foundation because it was more "respectable" and legitimate seeming, and I resisted because the foundation seemed shady (back then very few people realized it).

I handed bitcointalk.org over to theymos because; I trust him and his judgement, and I was not really active on the forum anyway. You can question my trust all you like, but I have been in a position for a long time to screw over you guys if I wanted too, but I didn't. Some users will instinctively understand that and ignore the nonsense you're spouting off, others will get sucked in, but either way I don't really care and I'm going to continue to do my best to help Bitcoin succeed.

[Lauda]

I handed bitcointalk.org over to theymos because; I trust him and his judgement, and I was not really active on the forum anyway. You can question my trust all you like, but I have been in a position for a long time to screw over you guys if I wanted too, but I didn't. Some users will instinctively understand that and ignore the nonsense you're spouting off, others will get sucked in, but either way I don't really care and I'm going to continue to do my best to help Bitcoin succeed.

How about you take yourself away from the position rather than boasting how you could but didn't do evil? Quite the accomplishment, only if you are actually evil. Thankfully your reputation is damaged beyond repair (it is nowhere near where it was a couple years back), and can only get worse given your failure to comply to the greater good. Absence of evil is not proof of good.

[midnightmagic]

I think peeps need to step back a step or two and be calm. There were a lot of times that bitcoin.org could've gone wrong but ultimately didn't. I think maybe some folks are assigning too much retrospective probability to Cøbra's potential to be malign. Functionally and operationally, and especially authoritatively nothing's changed, far as I can tell..? Right?

I think Cøbra says things a lot of the time that are ill-considered or appear to look one way or another; there was that odd security warning a few years back for example, but so far at least, either something has been moderating his response, or he's been arriving at an ultimately correct decision to act on his own. In the first case, hopefully whoever that is can continue to offer advice. In the second case, something in there has prevented him from heading towards e.g. bcash all on his own.

I think even Cøbra himself would agree that downloading the client from bitcoin.org is probably not the best idea. And probably distributing information about Bitcoin out to other places is also almost certainly a good idea.

If I were Cøbra sitting on that asset, emboldened by the fact that people have to listen to me or perceived repercussions are impossibly severe (would anyone care if he didn't control bitcoin.org?) — tbh, the constant abuse from people I respected would probably be wearing on me by now.

[Cøbra]

I handed bitcointalk.org over to theymos because; I trust him and his judgement, and I was not really active on the forum anyway. You can question my trust all you like, but I have been in a position for a long time to screw over you guys if I wanted too, but I didn't. Some users will instinctively understand that and ignore the nonsense you're spouting off, others will get sucked in, but either way I don't really care and I'm going to continue to do my best to help Bitcoin succeed.

How about you take yourself away from the position rather than boasting how you could but didn't do evil? Quite the accomplishment, only if you are actually evil. Thankfully your reputation is damaged beyond repair (it is nowhere near where it was a couple years back), and can only get worse given your failure to comply to the greater good.
teeGUMES you are an idiot, but go figure. Maybe merit some Hearnia and Andersonia too while you are at it.

My reputation is fine, most people just don't care about these things. Even if it was damaged beyond repair, being liked by random people on the internet isn't something I strive for. Who cares?

Take a look at the words you're using; "comply", "evil", "greater good", and insulting random users because they gave merit to one of my posts, how insecure, immature and ignorant are you? What are you so scared of? It's you that's the villain; screaming at me to comply, making demands, and aggressively smearing projects that have done more good for Bitcoin than you ever will. Shame on you.

It's people like you that make this forum so unwelcoming. By the way, thanks for your negative trust feedback, funny that you only mustered up the courage to do that after I was no longer owner of bitcointalk.org, perhaps you understood negative trusting the owner of the domain of the very site you're using would be comical.

[Lauda]

My reputation is fine, most people just don't care about these things

Living in a cave or refusing to admit it, either way works. Keep at it. Nobody respectable in this space, familiar with your words and actions, trusts you with $5.

It's people like you that make this forum so unwelcoming. By the way, thanks for your negative trust feedback, funny that you only mustered up the courage to do that after I was no longer owner of bitcointalk.org, perhaps you understood negative trusting the owner of the domain of the very site you're using would be comical.

It is neutral feedback. Lying, as expected of you. I did not do anything out of respect for theymos and his mistakes, one of which was trusting you very early on. This is no longer necessary.

[hacker1001101001]

Sad to see Cøbra downing the control towards an important aspect of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

More than imaginable number of users still see many of his works towards maintaing some important aspects of Bitcoin to be over the mark and think him being more creditable than he is now.

Sad update though.

[Cøbra]

It's people like you that make this forum so unwelcoming. By the way, thanks for your negative trust feedback, funny that you only mustered up the courage to do that after I was no longer owner of bitcointalk.org, perhaps you understood negative trusting the owner of the domain of the very site you're using would be comical.

It is neutral feedback. Lying, as expected of you. I did not do anything out of respect for theymoses mistakes, one of which was trusting you very early on. This is no longer necessary.

Doesn't sound very neutral to me:

Refused to decentralize Bitcoin.org control very likely due to long term malicious goals. I would not trust this user until proven otherwise (Not doing evil is not proof of good).

No, you didn't do anything before because you were scared it would have consequences for you (it wouldn't have), or that it would make you look stupid (it would), so you only acted now, which is cute.

[bonesjonesreturns]

I handed bitcointalk.org over to theymos because; I trust him and his judgement, and I was not really active on the forum anyway. You can question my trust all you like, but I have been in a position for a long time to screw over you guys if I wanted too, but I didn't. Some users will instinctively understand that and ignore the nonsense you're spouting off, others will get sucked in, but either way I don't really care and I'm going to continue to do my best to help Bitcoin succeed.

How about you take yourself away from the position rather than boasting how you could but didn't do evil? Quite the accomplishment, only if you are actually evil. Thankfully your reputation is damaged beyond repair (it is nowhere near where it was a couple years back), and can only get worse given your failure to comply to the greater good. Absence of evil is not proof of good.

1. If theymos who knows him better than you trusts him enough to hand it to him?
2. If he has had opportunities before to sabotage but has not done so?
3. Many years he has been solid in terms of correctly defending btc as bitcoin?

I will not heed the warnings of a proven scammer like you lauda nor the old perv nullius that seems to be their first to support your every whim over the judgement of theymos and the key points listed above. Also cobras post seems level headed and courteous in light of the snipes at him.

The only slight worry is that GM seemed not to be in the loop, because I would have assumed theymos and cobra may have mentioned the idea to him prior. Without hearing his detailed objections it is impossible to analyse and evaluate them.

I expect many will continue to use bitcoin.org

I accept there is risk in having a sole individual controlling bitcoin.org, but this hachette job a scumbag scammer and extortionist like lauda and that old perv nullius that follows lauda around are attempting is grotesque and unfair.

Let's hear theymos reasoning and GM  reasoning on it in detail before we start butchering a guys reputation to get what "we" think is best. Perhaps there are set in place some measures we are not aware of.

I don't see cobra has done anything against bitcoin that deserves this kind of abuse by the likes of lauda.

I liked it best when cobra and theymos shared ownership of both. I think both have served bitcoin well to this point so no need to start attacking either one in this way.

For sure it seems undeniably more risky for a sole controller, but character assassination is not fair at this point. You are likely to get a more desirable result with a reasonable and honest person if you treat them reasonably.

Lauda seems to be pushing cobra out all together that is not the way to approach it.

If the community really really disliked the idea,  Its possible they may reconsider.

End of the day I don't immediately see how this is better for bitcoin but I will hear more details of the concerns from trusted and solid members before becoming super concerned.  It does seem a very big change.

[Lauda]

It's people like you that make this forum so unwelcoming. By the way, thanks for your negative trust feedback, funny that you only mustered up the courage to do that after I was no longer owner of bitcointalk.org, perhaps you understood negative trusting the owner of the domain of the very site you're using would be comical.

It is neutral feedback. Lying, as expected of you. I did not do anything out of respect for theymoses mistakes, one of which was trusting you very early on. This is no longer necessary.

Doesn't sound very neutral to me:

Refused to decentralize Bitcoin.org control very likely due to long term malicious goals. I would not trust this user until proven otherwise (Not doing evil is not proof of good).

Neutral - Other comments.

The correct non-neutral wording would be to remove the 'very likely' which I will surely regret for putting in there down the road. Very rarely do I make a misjudgement of this kind.

No, you didn't do anything before because you were scared it would have consequences for you (it wouldn't have), or that it would make you look stupid (it would), so you only acted now, which is cute.

You could have not done anything and you know it, because I have known it for a long time. Try again. "Random", I wish.

[Vod]

It's people like you that make this forum so unwelcoming. By the way, thanks for your negative trust feedback

It is neutral feedback

Doesn't sound very neutral to me:

Lauda did enter it as neutral, and he is the one who best understands the tone of his feedback.  

This centralized DT system is broken (Techy is proof).  Maybe the new system will use AI and auto generate the feedback type based on the tone.  Until then, we should view trust as it was intended by the person leaving it.   We ALL know the difference to accounts for a negative vs neutral rating.

[bonesjonesreturns]

It's people like you that make this forum so unwelcoming. By the way, thanks for your negative trust feedback

It is neutral feedback

Doesn't sound very neutral to me:

Lauda did enter it as neutral, and he is the one who best understands the tone of his feedback.  

This centralized DT system is broken (Techy is proof).  Maybe the new system will use AI and auto generate the feedback type based on the tone.  Until then, we should view trust as it was intended by the person leaving it.   We ALL know the difference to accounts for a negative vs neutral rating.

It's 100% not a neutral comment.

Lauda is known for lashing out using the trust system as a weapon.
The merit system is totally broken. Trust is being conflated with merit.

Nobody in their right mind would have lauda anywhere near a trust system.

This is a character assassination and is totally the wrong way to approach this matter.
If you want cobra to be reasonable then you are going the wrong way about it.

Best case he and theymos revert things to how they were.

Who suggested it theymos or cobra first?
Either way best to debate this change without a scammer like lauda going full hate on the new sole controller of bitcoin.org.
Lose lose

[Vod]

It's 100% not a neutral comment.

It 101% is - negative comments are in red. 

[bonesjonesreturns]

It's 100% not a neutral comment.

It 101% is - negative comments are in red.  

Anyone reading the actual comment would not agree. Very likely you are a pedo? Is that neutral enough for you?
How would you view that under the guise of a neutral tag?
Not that i believe you are, but I hope you get the point

[Vod]

Anyone reading the actually comment would not agree. Very likely you are a pedo? Is that neutral enough for you?
How would you view that under the guise of a neutral tag?
Not that i believe you are, but I hope you get the point

As long as it's not negative and puts a -1 in my account to new members - people can write whatever they want in feedback - it's not moderated.  

[Lauda]

Anyone reading the actually comment would not agree. Very likely you are a pedo? Is that neutral enough for you?
How would you view that under the guise of a neutral tag?
Not that i believe you are, but I hope you get the point

As long as it's not negative and puts a -1 in my account to new members - people can write whatever they want in feedback - it's not moderated.  

The exact point of neutrals is that you can rant whatever you want in there, anything that is not a valid reason to give somebody a negative. Theymoses rules.

[teeGUMES]

I handed bitcointalk.org over to theymos because; I trust him and his judgement, and I was not really active on the forum anyway. You can question my trust all you like, but I have been in a position for a long time to screw over you guys if I wanted too, but I didn't. Some users will instinctively understand that and ignore the nonsense you're spouting off, others will get sucked in, but either way I don't really care and I'm going to continue to do my best to help Bitcoin succeed.

How about you take yourself away from the position rather than boasting how you could but didn't do evil? Quite the accomplishment, only if you are actually evil. Thankfully your reputation is damaged beyond repair (it is nowhere near where it was a couple years back), and can only get worse given your failure to comply to the greater good.
teeGUMES you are an idiot, but go figure. Maybe merit some Hearnia and Andersonia too while you are at it.

Cute ninja edit Lauda (emphasis mine to show Lauda's edit, quoted by Cøbra but then Foxpup merited it after Lauda's personal attack). Goes to show how your opinion sways when Foxpup, DdmrDdmr and others merit the post aswell. Scaredy cat.

What the coward changed it to once their friends started to merit.

Not a post worth meriting.

Cøbra sums you up perfectly here Lauda so no need for me to repeat anything. This is truly believed by well over half of the forum.

Take a look at the words you're using; "comply", "evil", "greater good", and insulting random users because they gave merit to one of my posts, how insecure, immature and ignorant are you? What are you so scared of? It's you that's the villain; screaming at me to comply, making demands, and aggressively smearing projects that have done more good for Bitcoin than you ever will. Shame on you.

It's people like you that make this forum so unwelcoming. By the way, thanks for your negative trust feedback, funny that you only mustered up the courage to do that after I was no longer owner of bitcointalk.org, perhaps you understood negative trusting the owner of the domain of the very site you're using would be comical.

[nullius]

Is Cøbra seriously pretending not to know the meaning of the term “neutral” in the context of forum feedback?  

I myself have been critical of the avoidance of responsibility for substantively negative neutral feedback based on only rumour and innuendo.  But that is clearly not what is happening here.  Lauda made a well-supported observation, and marked it as “neutral”.  Why is Cøbra deliberately confusing the issue by speaking as if she red-tagged him?

Also, it’s always nice to see whom the troll brigade is defending.  Anyway, as to the substance of the matter...

They won't ever talk about how much I've done to fight off many attacks, or when people were pressuring me to hand over the domain to the Bitcoin Foundation because it was more "respectable" and legitimate seeming, and I resisted because the foundation seemed shady (back then very few people realized it).

If you showed the foresight and wise judgment to distrust the clusterfork misadvertised as the so-called “Bitcoin Foundation”, then you should damn well know why people are worried about the potential that you may turn out to be another Gavin Andresen.

I so note this as the first and, thus far, only person who has red-tagged Gavin’s forum account.  Yes, that is symbolic; but if people won’t step up even that much...  Anyway, I think my point is clear about why people do not trust you to exclusively control bitcoin-dot-org:

References:
https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/929377620000681984
https://twitter.com/CobraBitcoin/status/1023566782001541120
https://twitter.com/CobraBitcoin/status/1037102542537334785
https://twitter.com/CobraBitcoin/status/1036652944916140032

Bitcoin.org was one of the most extreme and hostile towards these hard fork attacks: like here https://bitcoin.org/en/posts/denounce-segwit2x, and here, https://bitcoin.org/en/posts/hard-fork-policy. I was fervently against attempts like Bitcoin XT, BU, Segwit2x, etc, anyone who was around at the time will remember how aggressive Bitcoin.org and I were.

I was around at the time; and I do recall that it was specifically the “denounce-segwit2x” page linked above that gave bitcoin.org sufficient ongoing credibility for me to continue recommending it to newbies.

Should you doubt how hard I myself was against S2X particularly, back in 2017:

Traitors always evoke an intense feeling of horror and personal violation in those who trusted them.  Whenever I think of jgarzik, I think of dooglus’ comment which I memorialized in this screenshot when I was a Newbie, when I had been actively posting for less than five days:  “What have you done with the old jgarzik and how much will it cost us to buy him back?”  This was when 2X tried to subvert the Bitcoin P2P network; committer: jgarzik, whose code is not trustworthy.  Read that 28ebbdb commit for details.  Underhanded bastard.

[...]

Another one of my Newbie posts, from when I had been actively posting for seventeen days:

You fork, you die.

Genuine Bitcoin has crushed numerous forks and attempted forks:  “Bitcoin XT”, “Bitcoin Unlimited”, “Bitcoin Classic”, and the “New York Agreement” (misnamed “Segwit2X”; nothing to do with Segwit), to name but a few.  These no longer exist.  For the current outbreak of forks, if you wish to claim some fork coins, then dump them in exchange for real Bitcoin, and enjoy your free bitcoins.  Otherwise, simply ignore.  Anything from “Bitcoin Cash” to “Bitcoin Super Diamond Plus2X Plutonium With Ponies” is only a scam; and these scams will die sooner or later, just as did their antecedents.

There are many pretenders to the Bitcoin title.  However:

There is only one Bitcoin.

(Note:  Quote changed to refer to an imgur upload of the image that I originally obtained from http://segwit.party/nya/tombstone.jpg)

That tombstone could also read:  Here lies Jeff Garzik’s reputation in Bitcoinland.

Whereas Gavin Andresen is worse, much worse.

Their attempts to takeover Bitcoin would probably have had a much higher probability of success had I sided with them. If you're going to convincingly take over Bitcoin maliciously, you need 3 things: the miners so you can claim to have the most secure chain and have a stable blockchain (they had 80% of the hash rate), the consumer facing companies and exchanges so you can present your hard fork as Bitcoin to users (they had a lot of the companies backing them), and key public facing resources of trust like Bitcoin.org, that give you legitimacy and an endless number of incoming users from people searching "Bitcoin" through which you can gradually rebuild a new "Bitcoin community". The fact that they didn't have that hurt them a lot.

Within the four corners of what I just quoted, it is a good analysis.  However, you are drawing a false dichotomy between the threat of XT/BU/2X types of fork-attacks, and the threat of BCH/BSV/“Bitcoin Super Diamond Gold Mauve” types of fork-attacks.

Both are destructive to Bitcoin.  Both are based on lies, greed, and mass-manipulation.  This argument is like positing that it’s better for a cancer to metastasize outside the original tumour:

I would actually argue that Bitcoin Cash forking hurt the big blocker movement within Bitcoin pretty badly. Bitcoin Cash basically came out of nowhere, and many big blockers eventually kind of *had* to support it, after all the hard forks they tried in Bitcoin failed. Bitcoin Cash basically removed all the extreme big blockers from the Bitcoin community, it even took Roger Ver a little while to jump on board, but once they all did, it actually made Bitcoin safer as there was no longer a group of big blockers shouting a uniform narrative from within the Bitcoin community. Without Bitcoin Cash, we would have still had these extreme big blockers in the community for a lot longer.

Say what?

The real nightmare scenario is not these coins with Bitcoin in the name damaging trust, but a world in which there are disagreements over the name "Bitcoin" itself.

Have you not been around for long enough to see all the “Bitcoin Cash is the real Bitcoin” arguments?

ill say it here...BITCOIN CASH IS THE REAL BITCOIN
I got red trust because i speak the truth....This thread shows why many long term users are being tagged red, ...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2399315.msg24593043#msg24593043 , chk theymos comment.
Bitcoin cash is the real upgrade bitcoin needed, not segwit.btc is no longer what people think it was...https://www.segwetters.org/

Signature quoted to illustrate a point:  What’s with the martyrdom complex?

ASICBOOSTCOIN has the odour of a cult/sect.  Not even one of the fun ones:  I mean the boring kind of garden-variety cult whose messiah shears disciples of all their money, whereafter everybody commits mass suicide.  As such, it seems eerily appropriate that this scamcoin is fronted by a self-touted “Bitcoin Jesus”, Roger Ver.

That is one of my “Newbie” posts, from the same thread as:

Bitcoin Cash was spawned from the Bitcoin blockchain, and as such, maybe it should be allowed to use the word "Bitcoin" with a qualifying suffix.

No. Bitcoin Cash is nothing other than a blatant scam.

I quote that specifically because n.b. that Jet Cash is neither a n00b nor a shill.  That makes it particularly alarming that he would fall for this type of scam argument.

No matter how much you try to trick users, if the first Bitcoin site started by Satoshi himself, and mentioned in the whitepaper is calling your hard fork a fake, it's really hard to build legitimacy.

Although bitcoin.org is a very influential site (and we would not be otherwise having this discussion), the set of all people who know that bitcoin-dot-org is “the first Bitcoin site started by Satoshi himself” is numerically minuscule relative to the set of all people who see bitcoin-dot-com as legitimate because it is the Dot-Com.

Ultimately, what has actively stopped BCH from winning the public-relations mindshare war is that an unorganized, decentralized cadre of Bitcoiners who have pushed back unequivocally.  This set very visibly includes Greg Maxwell, and also his former colleagues at Blockstream—Dr. Back, et al.  It very visibly includes laanwj and harding, whom Lauda mentioned.  It very visibly does not include you, the exclusive controller of bitcoin-dot-org.

And about your screenshots of the Slack chats: I don't really see anything wrong there to be honest with you. It's funny how Adam Back was so hostile to me back then about me seeing some good things in Bitcoin Cash because I always thought a blockchain that sacrifices some decentralization in order to be able to handle more transactions was kind of necessary, and now he's out there pushing Blockstream's Liquid which is literally a sidechain controlled by companies in which your BTC gets morphed and required to be held in trust by federation partners so you can get the benefit of quicker transactions since blocks are more regular.

The day that Blockstream starts pushing Liquid as something other than a private commercial venture that is complementary to Bitcoin, primarily for the handling of non-Bitcoin assets, is the day that I unequivocally condemn Blockstream and everybody involved in it.  Whereas there are no indications of any such thing; and as it stands, Blockstream has a stainless track record for promoting privacy, decentralization, solid Bitcoin R&D, and Lightning.  (Also as a coder, I appreciate the cleanliness of their open-source code.)  Thus your statement is basically FUD on Dr. Back, Dr. Wuille, and their current and former colleagues at Blockstream.

To be execruciatingly clear, I don’t trust Blockstream!  To anyone with technical expertise, their self-evident agenda is, “Don’t trust us:  Keep Bitcoin trustless.”  I like that:  Keep down the blocksize so that ordinary people can keep running nodes (I say this with real-world experience needing to run Bitcoin on inexpensive hardware), and promote Lightning as the future of scaling and privacy.  For as long as that remains the agenda demonstrated by their actions and their code (not merely their words), I will continue to defend Blockstream’s reputation in public discussions.

(I have been intending to write a forum essay about this.  Disclosure:  I have no affiliation with Dr. Back, other than that I always liked his cypherpunks stuff, and I first discovered Hashcash in the 90s.)

Whereas, with a different emphasis:

And about your screenshots of the Slack chats: I don't really see anything wrong there to be honest with you. It's funny how Adam Back was so hostile to me back then about me seeing some good things in Bitcoin Cash because I always thought a blockchain that sacrifices some decentralization in order to be able to handle more transactions was kind of necessary

Thanks for clarifying.  The highlighted portion is exactly why people don’t trust you to be the exclusive controller of bitcoin-dot-org.

More or less the reason people don't trust me is because I said some good things about Bitcoin Cash a while ago, that's all it boils down too. They don't actually have a reason beyond that,

We don’t actually need a reason beyond that.

and their calls for me to transfer the domain to others are intended to push me out because they fear me.

Fear has nothing to do with it, I assure you.

They'd rather have someone in control of bitcoin.org who is easier to manipulate and who bends to groupthink and public pressure more easily.

laanwj et al. bend to groupthink and public pressure?  LOL.  Try pushing them around, and see how far you get.

Edit 2020-04-22:  Fixed a very embarrassing typo.  Alas, I erred!  :-(

[teeGUMES]

Right now Cøbra is sitting back laughing because with this split he has absolutely zero obligations to the very people that think they're bitcoin bigshots in this thread. Sorry theymos.. 100% your baby now that you've nurtured and let fester.

[Lauda]

Right now Cøbra is sitting back laughing because with this split he has absolutely zero obligations to the very people that think they're bitcoin bigshots in this thread. Sorry theymos.. 100% your baby now that you've nurtured and let fester.

AmericaThe US and brains often don't correlate.

[Vod]

America and brains often don't correlate.

I hope you mean the US.  THe northern people in North America are very intelligent - we manage to outperform the US in per capita production despite the hardships of living in a frozen wasteland. 

[Lauda]

I hope you mean the US.  THe northern people in North America are very intelligent - we manage to outperform the US in per capita production despite the hardships of living in a frozen wasteland. 

Sorry, I have corrected it. You are very right about this!

[DooMAD]

I had kind of noticed the parts about some questionable deviance into being sympathetic into shitcoins and nonsense BIG blocker theories, but sometimes it is NOT clear about the various connections and maybe they do not matter too much in the whole scheme of things and if I feel that I am able to engage within the forum and share ideas, mostly about bitcoin, then I am good...

Jay, I think that it would be a real eye-opener (and ultimately beneficial to Bitcoin) if you were to do a market analysis to estimate approximately where Bitcoin should be today, were it not for the fork-attacks.  Bitcoin’s “honey badger” power in resisting those attacks has been phenomenal; but where would we be without those attacks?

I am now arguing from a business perspective.  Any reasonable prospectus on Bitcoin must disclose that Bitcoin’s biggest vulnerability is fork-attacks, also known as the trust attack.  Any reasonable investor should recognize it as in his own self-interest to fight those attacks.  The forked shitcoins falsely advertised as “Bitcoin” will, in and of themselves, never amount to anything in the long term; they are purely a negative, which harms the market as a whole by intentionally, fraudulently diluting the “Bitcoin” brand and financially diluting Bitcoin’s market capitalization. and reducing overall investor confidence in Bitcoin’s uniqueness.  To invest exclusively in the one and only genuine Bitcoin, and to defend your investment by defending Bitcoin against dilution attacks, is a strategy perfectly matched in both principle and practicality.

Would I be right in assuming it's not the existence of forkcoins you oppose, but rather just the false advertising part to sucker in new users?  Because I'd argue that being opposed to forks unconditionally simply isn't practical.  If people vehemently want to incorporate ideas into Bitcoin that are fundamentally incompatible with its underlying principles, do we really want them to stick around forever, still desperately trying to inflict their delusions on the Bitcoin protocol?  Surely it's better to excrete such toxins?  It's never "dilution" to release waste.  Let them build their faulty clones and pretend it's the real thing.  I'd argue it's still preferable to an alternative outcome where no forks had taken place and the toxic "blocksize debate", instead of being a footnote in the annals of history like it is now, had still raged on to this day because those people never got what they believed they wanted.

The fact they still market their shitcoins as "Bitcoin" is inexcusable, but they're off doing their own thing now, leaving us to get on unopposed with our thing.  

[Lauda]

Would I be right in assuming it's not the existence of forkcoins you oppose, but rather just the false advertising part to sucker in new users?  Because I'd argue that being opposed to forks unconditionally simply isn't practical.  If people vehemently want to incorporate ideas into Bitcoin that are fundamentally incompatible with its underlying principles, do we really want them to stick around forever, still desperately trying to inflict their delusions on the Bitcoin protocol?  Surely it's better to excrete such toxins?  It's never "dilution" to release waste.  Let them build their faulty clones and pretend it's the real thing.  I'd argue it's still preferable to an alternative outcome where no forks had taken place and the toxic "blocksize debate", instead of being a footnote in the annals of history like it is now, had still raged on to this day because those people never got what they believed they wanted.

The fact they still market their shitcoins as "Bitcoin" is inexcusable, but they're off doing their own thing now, leaving us to get on unopposed with our thing.  

Forks are good, forks claiming that they are Bitcoin or have Bitcoin in their name are evil (even if they were 100x technologically superior) and anyone making pro-such-fork-statements is evil too.

[bonesjonesreturns]

Anyone reading the actually comment would not agree. Very likely you are a pedo? Is that neutral enough for you?
How would you view that under the guise of a neutral tag?
Not that i believe you are, but I hope you get the point

As long as it's not negative and puts a -1 in my account to new members - people can write whatever they want in feedback - it's not moderated.  

That statement does not refute my assertion that if a person wrote vod is very likely a pedo under the guise of a neutral feedback that you would believe that was a neutral comment or was intended to give a neutral impression to the reader.

So yes that is a negative comment but placed under a neutral rating.

Anyway, I don't think approaching the new sole owner of bitcoin.org in this manner that lauda the scammer is trying to pull this thread is the optimal path to take.

Character attacks are best reserved for those where there is strong or irrefutable evidence of wrong doing like in Laura's history here.
Lauda is actually throwing dirt on theymos judgement here also. So I hope that is clear.
You believe theymos has not considered all of this plus a lot of other information that we are not privy to?
Ask questions...don't leave known scammers to attempt character assassination based on weak sauce evidence

" very likely for malicious intent" 

Too strong and too viscous based on the evidence presented.  "Possible danger"  or " less secure"  okay fine. Very likely Malicious  intent NO.

The immediate support from nullius was predictable  

[Cøbra]

Ultimately, what has actively stopped BCH from winning the public-relations mindshare war is that an unorganized, decentralized cadre of Bitcoiners who have pushed back unequivocally.  This set very visibly includes Greg Maxwell, and also his former colleagues at Blockstream—Dr. Back, et al.  It very visibly includes laanwj and harding, whom Lauda mentioned.  It very visibly does not include you, the exclusive controller of bitcoin-dot-org.

Bitcoin Cash had no chance of ever getting called "Bitcoin" on major consumer services like Coinbase and wallets and payment rails. The attempts I fought against would have been presented as "Bitcoin" had they succeeded. At best, Bitcoin Cash might have confused and tricked a few people, but it wasn't as bad as the three wave of attacks that I was against. Adam Back supported something called the "Hong Kong agreement", a precursor to the "New York agreement" which Segwit2x was based off. Unfortunately, Adam for a brief moment also bought into the idea that Bitcoin could be changed by deals made between businesses.

There was no need for me to fight against Bitcoin Cash, because it clearly posed no risk to Bitcoin. It helped Bitcoin since big blockers left Bitcoin and focused their efforts on Bitcoin Cash. Some people just believe in scaling on-chain, others with solutions like Lighting, there was always going to be a split. The question was just whether it would happen by Bitcoin tearing itself apart, or by the big blockers just forking off into an altcoin.

To anyone with technical expertise, their self-evident agenda is, “Don’t trust us:  Keep Bitcoin trustless.”  I like that:  Keep down the blocksize so that ordinary people can keep running nodes (I say this with real-world experience needing to run Bitcoin on inexpensive hardware), and promote Lightning as the future of scaling and privacy.  For as long as that remains the agenda demonstrated by their actions and their code (not merely their words), I will continue to defend Blockstream’s reputation in public discussions.

For a company's who's motto is "don't trust, verify", all their products require quite a bit of trust. Let's go through and evaluate:

• Blockstream Satellite: A service that broadcasts the Bitcoin blockchain to the entire world with the aim of reducing Bitcoin's dependency on internet access. It isn't hard to see where things fall apart here. First, you can't obviously do an initial sync from a satellite, it just broadcasts the latest blocks. Secondly, if you run the satellite receiver, you are putting all your faith in Blockstream's uplink to give you the right blocks. Should you find yourself in a situation with no internet, and only a satellite, you are blindly putting faith in Blockstream's version of the Bitcoin blockchain. It's even worse than running an SPV node, Blockstream is basically sybil attacking you. At any time they can just choose to stop sending you new blocks and you're shit out of luck.
• Blockstream Green: Claims to be a simple and secure Bitcoin wallet. It isn't simple, nor secure. It uses 2-of-2 multi-sig, between you and Blockstreams' server. All transactions you do require Blockstream's signature. If their server goes down, you can't do any transactions, since they can't sign off on it. All your amounts are co-owned by Blockstream. It's even worse than running an SPV wallet. Because they sign all your transactions, they can also see all your transactions, and your IP addresses, destroying your privacy.
• Blockstream's Liquid sidechain: A federated sidechain that lets you do faster transactions and apparently gives you privacy. Here, users are asked to hand over their BTC to a federation, so that it can become L-BTC, the federation can literally steal all your bitcoins and block any transactions you make. They tried to market it as "trustless", until one of their own co-founders called them out on it: https://twitter.com/TheBlueMatt/status/1060101587584991233.

They present themselves as in support of trustless solutions, but everything they put out there is inevitably worse than the very stuff they used to criticize so much. These were the guys rallying hard against SPV wallets, and now they push a wallet in which you can't even transact without their permission. These were the guys criticizing other projects because their networks were too centralized, now they run a network that will gladly gobble up your BTC, give you some L-BTC, to let you transact faster, all while giving them the power to steal every last satoshi from you, but "Bitcoin Cash is a scam!" right?

Let's assume for a moment that Adam Back owned bitcoin.org, would you character assassinate him for supporting the Hong Kong agreements? Or what about Luke-jr, would you smear him because he pushed UASF very hard which could have split the network? What about Peter Todd, for pushing that shady coin Viacoin? Maybe you would claim Jameson Lopp is a scammer because he once supported Bitcoin XT? Andreas is obviously a scammer too, he says good things about Ethereum and wrote a book about it, ETH is pre-mined garbage, fuck him too right? Can't trust him. theymos must be a scammer too, he said too many good things about Grin, screw him too right?

Some of you really need to chill out. The Blockstream propaganda of "Cobra is evil!" really has you totally duped.

[Lauda]

The Blockstream propaganda of "Cobra is evil!" really has you totally duped.

Amusing that I am seeing this many years after I had first seen it used for "X is evil" (unrelated to you). 

[FIFA worldcup]

You're all wasting your time asking theymos. As owner he can do what he wants with the forum. As I've found out before, you can ask a question in one of these missives and he just won't answer. He's made a decision and you may as well respect it as he doesn't usually clarify. (Look at his activity over the last.year or so)

But Satoshi needs to be aligned on this ?  Was he aligned with the changes  
(P.S Its Just a joke)

Satoshi created both bitcoin.org and this forum, which was originally at bitcoin.org/smf.

[JayJuanGee]

bitcoincore.org (onion)

verify the integrity of your download using strong cryptography

On Principled Practicality

oh and say fuck you to the shitcoiners once in a while, that tends to be a bonus.

Whereupon:

Essentially nobody trusts Cøbra except theymos and maybe a couple of bamboozled individuals. There is a reason for this, and there is a reason why many here have praised Cøbra when he has appeared here before: It is called ignorance.

I had kind of noticed the parts about some questionable deviance into being sympathetic into shitcoins and nonsense BIG blocker theories, but sometimes it is NOT clear about the various connections and maybe they do not matter too much in the whole scheme of things and if I feel that I am able to engage within the forum and share ideas, mostly about bitcoin, then I am good...

Jay, I think that it would be a real eye-opener (and ultimately beneficial to Bitcoin) if you were to do a market analysis to estimate approximately where Bitcoin should be today, were it not for the fork-attacks.  Bitcoin’s “honey badger” power in resisting those attacks has been phenomenal; but where would we be without those attacks?

I believe that we cannot really have a world without attacks on bitcoin.

Even satoshi anticipated a lot of scams, attacks and snake oil salesmen.

I am NOT saying that those attacks should not be denigrated or called out for what they are, but I do not consider myself even willing to go down a road of hypothesizing a world without such attacks, because that seems to be nearly pure fantasy thinking and the world does not work like that.  Human greed does not work like that.  Even honest people will try to find ways around bitcoin, and they truly believe some of the bad analogies regarding the first generation does not work.  They put bitcoin in a first generation and try to act like nothing preceded it and then they try to create bitcoin 2.0, and they may even purposefully be in those false histories.

I also don't proclaim to be any kind of bitcoin expert, and so I appreciate that there might be symbiosis between bitcoin and the various shitcoins and even some learning that bitcoin does from those various attacks and experiments, so in some sense, bitcoin might not really be able to go up, until it has been attacked a number of times and proven itself worthy of continuing to go up.

I am now arguing from a business perspective.  Any reasonable prospectus on Bitcoin must disclose that Bitcoin’s biggest vulnerability is fork-attacks, also known as the trust attack.  

I am not either familiar with all of the various attack vectors to figure out which ones are more pernicious.  Of course the forks were to some degree attempts to attack bitcoin from the inside, so yeah in 2017, it is possible that the BIG blocker nutjobs could have won that battle and gotten bitcoin into a place that is no better than paypal.. or just easy to change at the whim of any group that could muster up the most kind of whining.... but probably some of the cyperpunks would have gone off and started working on a new bitcoin that was really censorship resistant... but instead, we are in a history in which, so far, that has not need to be done, and bitcoin continues to exist in a kind of bullish variation of a cyperpunks wet dream, with second layer systems that are built on bitcoin, but a lot of optionality too.  Sure, not everything is perfect in bitcoin in terms of any of the cyperpunks principles, but it seems quite difficult to imagine any other more better scenarios of where bitcoin is at as compared to where it could be.  

Yeah, we are likely to have a lot more attacks in terms of fungibility and privacy, but there still continue to be a lot of options in bitcoin that help us to consider that we are in a much better position by having bitcoin (those of us who know about it and invest into it) than we would be in our current precarious money printing situation and a kind of world calamity of various  ongoing productivity uncertainties.  I say fuck gold to some extent, but we are in a world that even gold is likely to perform quite well even though it does not seem to have as much flexibility as bitcoin in terms of a lot of things, including portability, divisibility and ease of access and self-storage.  So, yeah, even though a lot of BIGGER players seem to know about gold and trying to get some security in gold's likelihood to retain its value, bitcoin is still quite likely to outperform gold in magnitudes in the coming couple of years... so even with uncertainties, including likely ongoing snakeoil deceptions in various shitcoins, including stable coins, I am still quite confident that bitcoiner could not really imagine too much of a better place to be, because I still believe it is a bit unrealistic to just wish that the talented shitcoiners would work on bitcoin rather than wanting to get away with printing their own money... cannot really stop those behaviors and get those people to "work" on bitcoin.

Any reasonable investor should recognize it as in his own self-interest to fight those attacks.  

Sure.  Hate to quote Roger Ver.. but there is a tragedy of the commons problem, too... so some people can get away without fighting.. or at least not battling as much.. so the amount of outward fighting might not always be clear, and maybe in the end, we just have to have various tests of bitcoin that motivates others to figure out ways to make bitcoin more resilient or to speak out about bitcoin being superior or just superficially and unambiguously calling all the shitcoins, shitcoins, even though there might be one or two that has a tiny bit of value (am I being too generous?   ).

The forked shitcoins falsely advertised as “Bitcoin” will, in and of themselves, never amount to anything in the long term; they are purely a negative, which harms the market as a whole by intentionally, fraudulently diluting the “Bitcoin” brand and financially diluting Bitcoin’s market capitalization. and reducing overall investor confidence in Bitcoin’s uniqueness.  To invest exclusively in the one and only genuine Bitcoin, and to defend your investment by defending Bitcoin against dilution attacks, is a strategy perfectly matched in both principle and practicality.

Yeah, maybe we will get lucky and some of them will disappear more quickly, but I don't see them going away very quickly and even if the scammer craig wright gets thrown in jail, BcashSV probably will not die, and it might even pump.  So what I am saying is that it could take 50 years or more for the value to gravitate into bitcoin, including periods of time that some of us could make way more money by supporting various shitcoins that are printing money and we happen to be in the right (or should I say Wright) circles at the right time.  

I am not sacrificing my own psychology to get involved in a bunch of shitcoins, but it is difficult to really stop people from doing it, and maybe we might even meet people who end up getting involved in "superduper the best coin" for the next 20 years and making a killing, while bitcoin is merely just plodding along with only averaging 50% price appreciation per year rather than some higher performing shitcoins.. that end up crashing down 20 years later, but in the meantime the shitcoin pumpeners were buying multiple lambos, hookers and blow... while we were suffering in our Rav4 and other lesser and more practical luxuries because we are "only" averaging 50% per year returns.. but yeah, in the long run, the value would still likely still be gravitating into bitcoin until there is some kind of meaningful other sound money asset that even comes close to bitcoin... and can you name any that come even close?  I thought not..  

Whereas Cøbra is perfectly positioned to stab Bitcoin in the back.  He is a trusted party for a vital public relations channel—one to which such well-intended people as LoyceV (and unfortunately, I myself) have been referring newbies.  If Cøbra were just some guy posting his opinions on the Internet, it would be a different matter.  Whereas the trusted party exclusively controlling a website with major public mindshare is known to be at best equivocal—at best.  If he were deadly principled, it may arguably be a different matter; but he is obviously not, wherefore:

Next step: Cøbra to give up access to Bitcoin.org.

O.k.  Fair enough.  I don't see any problem calling out Cøbra, and to the extent that he wants to defend himself, then that is fine, too.  Probably in the end, there are going to be a lot of decent people who are deceived into promoting shitcoins, or bitcoin imitations, so yeah, it could take a long ass time to work a lot of this out.. and sure it is possible also that bitcoin could fail in the process or get on a lower trajectory than what the stock to flow model would proposition.

Even something like stock to flow could still be correct, but have to be jiggered in order to deal with reality, such as moving the curve down or even tweaking some of the parameters in order to deal with the real impacts of some of the fuckery and trickery in the space and including some of the frequently subtle aspects that can deceive good people into supporting the wrong project.

Each of us merely has the choice about how we are going to proceed forward based on our own circumstances, so we have to consider our own particulars including cashflow, other investments, view of bitcoin as compared with other assets, our timeline, risk tolerance and our time and skills to research, manage and tweak our allocations which can include ongoing learning and figuring out how to spend our time, too.  

Maybe even if we are feeling less confident in bitcoin we might take some higher stakes in some of the shitcoins, and yeah, if we are in our early 20s we are going to be more willing to take higher risks and be a bit more adventurous and maybe even engage in a bit more of an active battle against shitcoins or even invest a bit higher allocation in shitcoins because we are not even sure about the direction of matters and what coin to support with our limited financial resources, but our more plentiful resources of energy and a longer time horizon, but sometimes our own personal circumstances are going to limit us more in terms of how we can participate, so even if some older people might be presumed to have gotten their shit together financially and even more worldly smarter, but there are even some older people who have been engaging in a long life of ongoing gambling, and they cannot stop themselves from continuing to gamble and wondering why they had never built up a strong base of wealth.. so they get lured (again) into shitcoins.  

There is only so much that any of us can do to help others, and I am NOT saying not to help others, but still one of the most important things is to make sure that each of us has our own shit together and to put our own oxygen mask on before helping others with their mask....   So, yes, we can also do both, and I don't subscribe to all or nothing, but we have to also think about matters in terms of ourselves and getting our own allocation to a comfortable level and tweaking our own situation from time to time while we venture out and call bullshit on other projects or even figuring out how much time, energy or finances to put into either fighting shitcoin projects or investing in them... None of us has perfect information, either, so the best that we can do, most of the time, is to attempt to tailor as well as we can to what we can figure out about our own circumstances.

[Fragbait]

How about you take yourself away from the position rather than boasting how you could but didn't do evil?

How about you go and create your own site and make it as successful, and then give it away if you like communism so much.

It's his site, he can do whatever the f he pleases with it. You don't get a say. Sorry.

[nullius]

Bottom line up front:

Some of you really need to chill out. The Blockstream propaganda of "Cobra is evil!" really has you totally duped.

In my experience, the moment that I hear the phrase “Blockstream propaganda”, I know that I am speaking to an idiot.  It’s a kind of shibboleth for those who believe everything that they read on /r/btc.

Ultimately, what has actively stopped BCH from winning the public-relations mindshare war is that an unorganized, decentralized cadre of Bitcoiners who have pushed back unequivocally.  This set very visibly includes Greg Maxwell, and also his former colleagues at Blockstream—Dr. Back, et al.  It very visibly includes laanwj and harding, whom Lauda mentioned.  It very visibly does not include you, the exclusive controller of bitcoin-dot-org.

Bitcoin Cash had no chance of ever getting called "Bitcoin" on major consumer services like Coinbase and wallets and payment rails. [...] At best, Bitcoin Cash might have confused and tricked a few people [...] There was no need for me to fight against Bitcoin Cash, because it clearly posed no risk to Bitcoin.

WTF, were you now around in September–November 2017?  All that talk about “the flippening” may seem like a sick joke now; but at the time, it did not seem so.

I myself will never forget the day of 12 November 2017.  I was fucking glued to the computer screen all day as our hashrate plummeted—I think that at some point, Slushpool alone was something like 70% of our hashrate, which is really bad.  Block generation slowed to a crawl, mempools backed up to hell, and meanwhile, all the Btrashers were on social media prematurely gloating about their victory as BCH prices spiked something like 300% in about 12 hours on FOMO rush—for before the dump, first comes the pump...

(Details thereby are recounted off the top of my head, subject to the lability of human memory.)

Of course, what ultimately happened is that even the worst bad actors in mining had to come crawling back to Bitcoin if they wanted to pay their electric bills, the BCH price crashed as quickly as it had spiked, FOMO sheep got fleeced, and Bitcoin moved on.  But that would not have happened if fewer Bitcoiners had my attitude, and more Bitcoiners had your attitude.  If the economic majority had your way of thinking, Bitcoin would have been “flippened” out of existence; and its replacement would have been pwned by Jihan & Co. as a centrally managed shitcoin, with no alternatives remaining.

The attempts I fought against would have been presented as "Bitcoin" had they succeeded.

What part of “X and Y would both have been very bad” is difficult to understand?

To anyone with technical expertise, their self-evident agenda is, “Don’t trust us:  Keep Bitcoin trustless.”  I like that:  Keep down the blocksize so that ordinary people can keep running nodes (I say this with real-world experience needing to run Bitcoin on inexpensive hardware), and promote Lightning as the future of scaling and privacy.  For as long as that remains the agenda demonstrated by their actions and their code (not merely their words), I will continue to defend Blockstream’s reputation in public discussions.

For a company's who's motto is "don't trust, verify", all their products require quite a bit of trust. Let's go through and evaluate:

• [— A selection of three items, suspiciously excluding how Dr. Back, et al. have apparently bet the future of the company on the Lightning Network. —]

Interesting, the part that you ignored there.  Well, let us take the three that you did list one by one:

• Blockstream Satellite: A service that broadcasts the Bitcoin blockchain to the entire world with the aim of reducing Bitcoin's dependency on internet access. It isn't hard to see where things fall apart here. First, you can't obviously do an initial sync from a satellite, it just broadcasts the latest blocks. Secondly, if you run the satellite receiver, you are putting all your faith in Blockstream's uplink to give you the right blocks. Should you find yourself in a situation with no internet, and only a satellite, you are blindly putting faith in Blockstream's version of the Bitcoin blockchain. It's even worse than running an SPV node, [color=yellow,2,100]Blockstream is basically sybil attacking you.[/glow] At any time they can just choose to stop sending you new blocks and you're shit out of luck.

As a security expert, I can attest that you have no idea what a Sybil attack is.  How does Blockstream Satellite generate unbounded numbers of sockpuppet identities using cheap identifiers to overwhelm your view of the network?

I myself love the concept of Blockstream Satellite because, if used properly, it can give a 100% anonymous (receipt of broadcast radio waves with <$100 in commonly-available hardware) view of the blockchain that is immune to targeted attacks, and is probably more reliable on average than an anonymous peer randomly selected from a network currently infested with actual Sybil nodes.  When combined with the P2P network, I think that Blockstream Satellite adds a safety check against eclipse attacks.  Although that is not their primary advertised use case, I myself think it is a good use case.

For those with very limited Internet connections, receiving blocks through Blockstream Satellite and then checking the block hashes against those observed on the P2P network would give all the security of the P2P network, and would not in any way be comparable to SPV.  I have not configured it this way, and I admit I don’t know off the top of my head exactly the magic to make Core do this; but if I were consulting for someone with limited Internet access, it is the first thing that I would look into.  The first thing that I would check is if Blockstream has already done the hard work here...

Core independently validates the blocks that you would be receiving through Blockstream; and if the chain you’re being fed by them does not match the hashes of whatever your P2P peers are advertising as their best chain tips, Blockstream  has no way of stopping you from downloading the other blocks from the Internet, and immediately figuring out that Blockstream is trying to mislead you.

If Blockstream were to broadcast bad blocks worldwide through a system that by its nature cannot target users, it would be an excellent means for them to out themselves as totally corrupt and worthy of universal hatred.

• Blockstream Green: Claims to be a simple and secure Bitcoin wallet. It isn't simple, nor secure. It uses 2-of-2 multi-sig, between you and Blockstreams' server. All transactions you do require Blockstream's signature. If their server goes down, you can't do any transactions, since they can't sign off on it. All your amounts are co-owned by Blockstream. It's even worse than running an SPV wallet. Because they sign all your transactions, they can also see all your transactions, and your IP addresses, destroying your privacy.

I have not evaluated Blockstream Green, nor was I familiar with its predecessor GreenAddress; so I can’t speak to this.

• Blockstream's Liquid sidechain: A federated sidechain that lets you do faster transactions and apparently gives you privacy. Here, users are asked to hand over their BTC to a federation, so that it can become L-BTC, the federation can literally steal all your bitcoins and block any transactions you make. They tried to market it as "trustless", until one of their own co-founders called them out on it: https://twitter.com/TheBlueMatt/status/1060101587584991233.

So, bluematt flamed them for an advertisement that damn well deserved it.  His twitter bio still proudly lists him as Blockstream co-founder.  Call me when he starts tweeting about “Blockstream propaganda”.

I don’t (and can’t) transact on Liquid.  Insofar as I have looked into it, it seems to be primarily a way for non-Bitcoin assets to be managed.  Call me if Blockstream starts to position it as a replacement for Bitcoin, or otherwise as a competitor to Bitcoin.

They present themselves as in support of trustless solutions, but everything they put out there is inevitably worse than the very stuff they used to criticize so much.

Such as Lightning Network?  Most of what I know directly about Blockstream’s current market position comes from my following (in various degrees) c-lightning and related Elements Project work on Lightning integration with everything from shopping carts to tipjars to pay-per-call Web APIs.

https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
Merited by nullius (100)

0.7.3 - 2019-10-18: "Bitcoin's Proof of Stake"

This release was named by @trueptolemy.

Insofar as I can see as an outsider with no relation to Blockstream, it looks to me like if Lightning fails, Dr. Back will probably be a poor man.

I also admire some of their ongoing R&D, such as Simplicity for advanced smart contracts with mathematically provable security properties—unlike Ethereum’s foreseeable security nightmare of a Turing-complete VM bolted onto a blockchain, covered over in a fashionable Javascript-like language.  It is not the first time that I have raised this point:

Human beings know how to build correct, reliable computing machines.  I’ve read of fully redundant systems which could lose a CPU any time without blinking, capability-based research systems, etc., etc....  But all that is too expensive, plus too slow to bring to market.  People want their Dancing Pigs and their Cryptokitties.  Thus, we get everywhere the computing equivalent of Ethereum.  Who wants to wait for research like Simplicity before running a hot new ICO?

If you are interested in smart contracts, you may appreciate a peek at current R&D which may potentially someday become the future of Bitcoin smart contracts:  Simplicity (PDF).  Powerfully expressive smart contracts written with in a formally verifiable DSL, running on a formally verified VM, would have none of the exploding clown car disasters inevitably resulting from the stupidity of bolting a Turing-complete VM onto a blockchain.

...if we want to discuss yet another object lesson on why Bitcoin should never, ever have a Turing-complete script.  For that reason, Bitcoin has something better in the pipeline.  It will have properties which can be proved against DAO-style “oopsies” and mass-loss “hacker deleted the library” bugs; and it will never let the network be DOSed by prolifically fecund, evilly cute kittens.  It will be pure, powerful Simplicity (PDF).

Well, either that—or if we want to make fun of Ethereum and its latest woes.  Hahaha!  That is on-topic anywhere, in my engineering opinion.

(Oh, and libwally is little bundle of joy.  I say that based on having read the code, not based on the name of the company who published it.  I have been planning that if/when I dust off some of my little Bitcoin utilities on Github, I should probably use libwally to replace my own address-wrangling and BIP32-derivation code.  It’s a small thing in the big picture, but nevertheless worth mention in small text.)

Of the Blockstream goodies that I just described, all of which you somehow forgot to mention, what doesn’t push trustlessness and decentralization?

~

Would I be right in assuming it's not the existence of forkcoins you oppose, but rather just the false advertising part to sucker in new users?  Because I'd argue that being opposed to forks unconditionally simply isn't practical.

I actually do oppose forks almost categorically.  I began to write a long essay on that, which perhaps I may finish later and post somewhere...  The nutshell version is that:

If people vehemently want to incorporate ideas into Bitcoin that are fundamentally incompatible with its underlying principles, do we really want them to stick around forever, still desperately trying to inflict their delusions on the Bitcoin protocol?  Surely it's better to excrete such toxins?  It's never "dilution" to release waste.

Indeed, you are right.  But without fallacious overextension, the same analogy works perfectly well for observing that excreted toxins are just that:  Shit (or shitcoins) which are dead weight to be flushed down the sewer.

It is not exactly a ringing endorsement of forks. :-)


Long post by Jay came in while I was writing my long post.  Will catch up soon.

[theymos]

If you don't like Cøbra: Cøbra had ultimate technical authority over both domains; I only had management access. There was never a point in history where I had ultimate authority over either domain. Now Cøbra only has one domain. Furthermore, I have not been very active in influencing anything related to bitcoin.org for a couple of years, so nothing is likely to change as a result of me being removed from the list of domain administrators.

If you don't like me: Cøbra never had any access to the bitcointalk.org server, and had essentially no influence over its operation, so things have not gotten "worse" in any way.
Cøbra has been erratic at times, and has made some statements/decisions which I disagreed with, but I really don't think that he will suddenly "turn evil". He could've done that at any time over the past several years, and nobody would've been able to stop him. Lately, bitcoin.org has been developing especially well.

The ideal solution would be to somehow stop people from considering centralized sites like bitcoin.org/bitcoin.com/etc. as "important", but that's not going to happen. Even if you got everyone to switch to btcinformation.org or whatever, then you'd be creating a new important centralized site which would eventually be corrupted. (Not to say that such an effort is pointless, though, if you don't like bitcoin.org.) All we can do about this situation is to just individually try our best:
 - If you see something about bitcoin.org (or another site) that you don't like, try to get it changed.
 - If you don't like bitcoin.org (or another site) or you don't like the way that it's managed, point people to a different site instead, or create your own.
 - If you end up controlling an "important site", try to keep it operating in the most correct way that you can, for as long as possible.

[nullius]

The ideal solution would be to somehow stop people from considering centralized sites like bitcoin.org/bitcoin.com/etc. as "important", but that's not going to happen. Even if you got everyone to switch to btcinformation.org or whatever, then you'd be creating a new important centralized site which would eventually be corrupted.

That is an excellent point.  From here, the discussion inevitably devolves into big talk about some plan to redesign the Web to have at least the decentralization that Usenet had 40 years ago.  To avoid that discussion, all I’ll say is that “cypherpunks write code”. :-)

(Not to say that such an effort is pointless, though, if you don't like bitcoin.org.) All we can do about this situation is to just individually try our best:
 - If you see something about bitcoin.org (or another site) that you don't like, try to get it changed.
 - If you don't like bitcoin.org (or another site) or you don't like the way that it's managed, point people to a different site instead, or create your own.
 - If you end up controlling an "important site", try to keep it operating in the most correct way that you can, for as long as possible.

Sound advice.  With a centrally controlled resource, it is all a matter of trust.  There are some individuals whom I myself would trust with such responsibility.  (And what happens when they die—is there trustworthy clear succession of responsibility?  And what if others do not likewise trust them?  And...)

That said, I must point out that this:

Next step: Cøbra to give up access to Bitcoin.org.

~

How about you give up singular control to shared control by known and honest individuals such as Wladimir, harding and others? Oh right, we have tried this before and you refused.

...is exactly an instance of this:

- If you see something about bitcoin.org (or another site) that you don't like, try to get it changed.

[JayJuanGee]

The Blockstream propaganda of "Cobra is evil!" really has you totally duped.

Amusing that I am seeing this many years after I had first seen it used for "X is evil" (unrelated to you). 

Surely, I am missing something here.



Like an insider joke, or something... 

[TECSHARE]

I am not too fond of this change. I feel like Cøbra was a counterbalancing force as well as a means to protect the forum by division of ownership, IE if say some legal action happens to the forum server itself it can be re-opened again or vice versa. I understand doing it for simplicity sake, but I believe there were distinct benefits to keeping it the way it was.

...It's funny to hint I'm malicious or untrustworthy, despite managing these domains for years without any wrongdoing. I remember when these same people were hinting at me eventually turning bitcoin.org into a Bitcoin Cash site, yet it never happened, but it didn't stop them scaremongering and screaming about it like it was inevitable. Now here people are, hinting at some vague notion of me being untrustworthy, despite me safely and without incident handing the domain over to theymos. I think this is a problem with some people on this forum in general, they just assume everyone is malicious and some scammer, unless said user is in their clique.

The truth is, while you are spinning up nonsense and trying to spook people and smearing bitcoin.org's reputation, we are educating tens of thousands of new users each day. Millions of users learn about Bitcoin with us yearly, we send so much traffic to exchanges and wallets it's ridiculous, all of which translates into expanding the Bitcoin community...

That is the primary function of The Clown Pope and his Clown Cardinals.

[bonesjonesreturns]

If you don't like Cøbra: Cøbra had ultimate technical authority over both domains; I only had management access. There was never a point in history where I had ultimate authority over either domain. Now Cøbra only has one domain. Furthermore, I have not been very active in influencing anything related to bitcoin.org for a couple of years, so nothing is likely to change as a result of me being removed from the list of domain administrators.

If you don't like me: Cøbra never had any access to the bitcointalk.org server, and had essentially no influence over its operation, so things have not gotten "worse" in any way.
Cøbra has been erratic at times, and has made some statements/decisions which I disagreed with, but I really don't think that he will suddenly "turn evil". He could've done that at any time over the past several years, and nobody would've been able to stop him. Lately, bitcoin.org has been developing especially well.

The ideal solution would be to somehow stop people from considering centralized sites like bitcoin.org/bitcoin.com/etc. as "important", but that's not going to happen. Even if you got everyone to switch to btcinformation.org or whatever, then you'd be creating a new important centralized site which would eventually be corrupted. (Not to say that such an effort is pointless, though, if you don't like bitcoin.org.) All we can do about this situation is to just individually try our best:
 - If you see something about bitcoin.org (or another site) that you don't like, try to get it changed.
 - If you don't like bitcoin.org (or another site) or you don't like the way that it's managed, point people to a different site instead, or create your own.
 - If you end up controlling an "important site", try to keep it operating in the most correct way that you can, for as long as possible.

This post is quite clear.

Cobra had ultimate control of both domains.
Cobra gives 1 domain to theymos

I'm not sure how lauda " now " decides this inspires = " very likely malicious intent" from cobra.
To me this appears relinquishing power not gaining power over the direction / perception of bitcoin.

I can guarantee if these " critics" had owned both domains they wouldn't consider giving or sharing either.
They would be personally milking them for every cent like they do here with their gambling sigs, escrowing, lending, scamming.
Be grateful cobra had the domains not lauda. Wallets emptied, cpu maxed out mining shitcoins, your granny getting threatening phone calls in the middle of the night by "under cover agents".

Unless either theymos or cobra want to set up some co ownership scenario which I guess they don't. Then it will be as it has pretty much been before. We just keep trusting the same people have had to trust previously.
So far. So good, overall. Secretly I was hoping cobra would remove the merit tumour one night when theymos was sleeping.
More shattered dreams.

Personally I think this forum is the one I would choose if I had a pick. You can't replace the history here.

At first it sounded a move in the wrong direction because I had assumed they were co owners of both with joint influence.
Now it seems if anything a little more decentralized/ distributed.
Could it be more so.....yes

I always look at ultimate control.  The rest is pretty much a facade. Now you have 2 separate owners.

[harding]

Both domains were last updated on November 24 last year:

Code:

Domain Name: BITCOINTALK.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D162601474-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2019-11-24T14:01:10Z
Creation Date: 2011-06-24T05:19:00Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2029-06-24T05:19:00Z

Code:

Domain Name: BITCOIN.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D153621148-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2019-11-24T13:58:35Z
Creation Date: 2008-08-18T13:19:55Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2029-08-18T13:19:55Z

That update was likely the result of my prompting.  On 23 November (my local time), I emailed several people I knew who owned .org domains encouraging them to renew as far in the future as possible because the .org registry was being sold.  Here's a copy of the email I sent Cøbra:

Hey,

FYI, the .org TLD was just sold to a private company.[1]  I noticed
Bitcoin.org is due to expire in two years; you may want to renew now to
the maximum of 10 years before the new .org TLD owners raise
prices (some TLDs charge many thousands of dollars per year for the
"bitcoin" name in their TLD).

-Dave

[1] https://savedotorg.org/

Cøbra replied thanking me for the tip and saying that he'd update both domains, although he wasn't sure it was strictly necessary (indeed, so far, I don't think renewal fees have increased much).

[NotATether]

I was around at the time; and I do recall that it was specifically the “denounce-segwit2x” page linked above that gave bitcoin.org sufficient ongoing credibility for me to continue recommending it to newbies.

Should you doubt how hard I myself was against S2X particularly, back in 2017:

It doesn't matter which of you were the hardest against Segwit2X, one person cannot change something by himself. It takes several people to oppose change.

Would I be right in assuming it's not the existence of forkcoins you oppose, but rather just the false advertising part to sucker in new users?

Replying to nullius:

Speaking from a new user's perspective here. I found bitcoin from a LinusTechTips video where he was attempting to mine bitcoin and talking about getting crazy rich from it. This is how the vast majority of newbies are exposed to bitcoin these days. You either tell them that there's this thing called "bitcoin" which you can mine and get free coins out of it (even though that isn't technically true), or show them that people are getting crazy rich off of it, either way the person in question dips their toes into bitcoin. But:

• Have you ever seen a popular youtube channel talking about BCH or BSV? Crypto channels do not count because their audience is people who already know about bitcoin.
• Have you seen a popular news outlet talking about BCH or BSV? Same disqualification above applies here too.

That's it. Those are the only avenues that reach large swaths of diverse users. Even the NYT article I linked did not once mention the words Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV, despite containing much other terminology verbage. And a social media post will only be read by a few hundred or thousand people, which is the consequence of having a Follow button, most of whom are either not newbies or have other, busy things to do with their time. Meaning BCH and BSV shills' sphere of influence on social media is limited to the people who want to believe it i.e. not the average joes, and they are a large majority, who are trying to use bitcoin to become rich.

I mean, if someone clicked the Follow button on one of those people, then they are clearly not a bitcoin newbie.

Whether you like Cobra or not is irrelevant. This discussion is happening on the back page of an internet forum far away from the bitcoin.org landing page. It is worth noting though that discussions like these are necessary to prevent mainstream channels from hosting these arguments in their own medium, exposing this to clueless people on Youtube and news. That is something I would worry about more than whether you trust Cobra with the bitcoin domain, and judging by the length of this thread you guys are doing a good job at keeping this discussion out of mainstream news, as I haven't seen a single article about this as of today.

Wake me up when LinusTechTips, which is sometimes listed here, or some other youtuber starts talking about BCH/BSV.

In fine, I'm sharply more worried about (the highly unlikely scenario given the point above) a large trending youtube channel with millions of subscribers merely talking about forkcoins than posts that morons like this one make here.

[AGD]

Did someone already throw in Andreas M. Antonopoulos as the domain name keeper?

[DooMAD]

Did someone already throw in Andreas M. Antonopoulos as the domain name keeper?

If a domain name belonged to you, would you be wanting opinions from strangers on the internet when you haven't requested any assistance regarding who should receive your property?

I'm sure if Cobra needed help making a decision, they would ask.  Until then, it's not our place to say.


//EDIT:  Apologies, I missed that part.  I just saw the more recent post where Cobra mentioned two names they had in mind.

[AGD]

Did someone already throw in Andreas M. Antonopoulos as the domain name keeper?

If a domain name belonged to you, would you be wanting opinions from strangers on the internet when you haven't requested any assistance regarding who should receive your property?

I'm sure if Cobra needed help making a decision, they would ask.  Until then, it's not our place to say.

Maybe he did and maybe you simply don't know. Maybe you should stop commenting things that you don't know about?

Alternatively, if anyone knows of any individuals or organisations that would be good, feel free to suggest (either here, or privately -- just DM me on Twitter

[TheBeardedBaby]

Did someone already throw in Andreas M. Antonopoulos as the domain name keeper?

If a domain name belonged to you, would you be wanting opinions from strangers on the internet when you haven't requested any assistance regarding who should receive your property?

I'm sure if Cobra needed help making a decision, they would ask.  Until then, it's not our place to say.

I think AGD is referring to Cøbra's announcement, quoted here :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5248316.msg54427415#msg54427415

First of all, happy halving to everyone!

I just want to inform that I will gradually be reducing my involvement in Bitcoin.org this year, it won't happen instantly but hopefully by the end of the year, I won't be around anymore. Over the years, I'm glad to have helped contribute to a project that has let so many millions of people learn about Bitcoin. It's really a massive honour. The domain name will be left in trusted hands, I have a few people in mind already. Alternatively, if anyone knows of any individuals or organisations that would be good, feel free to suggest (either here, or privately -- just DM me on Twitter). Ultimately, trust is very hard to measure, but I plan to be thorough and meticulous here and find the right people.

I guess for a lot of people, this will probably be some sort of relief. I can't say I've gotten along well with everyone, and some people have questioned my judgement. Hopefully whoever comes after me doesn't get sucked into drama as easily as I sometimes did (though that's also largely a product of being around in pretty dramatic times). Bitcoin.org really is an amazing resource, and we need to continue working on it and keep improving it. With Bitcoin being as complicated as it is for new people to understand, sites like Bitcoin.org are key to getting more mainstream adoption. Especially in avoiding getting Bitcoin labelled as some get rich quick scheme.

If we've had any collaboration over the years; I appreciate your contributions, and have learned a lot from many of you. I wish everyone good luck and success. Thank you. No doubt Bitcoin will keep succeeding and reaching new milestones with such a great community behind it.

[hv_]

Did someone already throw in Andreas M. Antonopoulos as the domain name keeper?

And go shill for ETH scams?

Snaking out in courts?

Lol

It's people like you that make this forum so unwelcoming. By the way, thanks for your negative trust feedback, funny that you only mustered up the courage to do that after I was no longer owner of bitcointalk.org, perhaps you understood negative trusting the owner of the domain of the very site you're using would be comical.

It is neutral feedback. Lying, as expected of you. I did not do anything out of respect for theymoses mistakes, one of which was trusting you very early on. This is no longer necessary.

Doesn't sound very neutral to me:

Refused to decentralize Bitcoin.org control very likely due to long term malicious goals. I would not trust this user until proven otherwise (Not doing evil is not proof of good).

No, you didn't do anything before because you were scared it would have consequences for you (it wouldn't have), or that it would make you look stupid (it would), so you only acted now, which is cute.

The clever snake smells the fear

Right

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[gmaxwell]

Some wanted more color on my thoughts about cobra (and this was too long to fit in the trust system comments).

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

I don't know Cobra well.  I don't think anyone does: We can't as a consequence of his anonymity.

But I don't have much doubt that Cobra is a rough man in the above sense.  Brash and at times apparently erratic.  When I trusted him with confidences, he broke them.  Unrepentantly.  He created drama in the community, for reasons that I don't understand or maybe no reason at all.  Just because he's Cobra.

I've seen him lash out in places that I think didn't come close to deserving it-- and we have so much toxicity from outright enemies of Bitcoin, so it hurts all the more from people who should be working toward a common end.  Why?  Because it moved?  I cannot say.

He's abused me personally, calling me evil in public for little reason.  I'm not alone.  At times Cobra can be the kind of ally that makes you think longingly about the company of enemies.

But when things were broken and and really deserved criticism and when many people bit their tongues, Cobra was there also ready to speak up and say what was necessary.

When mobs were being swayed by popular whim, Cobra held strong.

From what I can tell Cobra more or less doesn't give a fuck about what anyone else thinks for better, or for worse.

In many cases I agree with his positions but strongly believe he often promotes them in a counter productive way that creates drama for no good reason.  I don't think it's because he intends to, but maybe because he doesn't really care what people might say or think.

But Bitcoin.org?   He protected it.  Yet, across the years he managed to drive off some extremely valuable contributors and left many in the community stressed that would get turned into something anti-bitcoin.  But he hasn't corrupted the site or handed it to someone who would, he just didn't know or didn't care to say the right words to inspire people's confidence that he wouldn't.

But when I think about how it could have gone instead of Cobra... I shiver.  The ill-fated Bitcoin Foundation wanted to control it-- could you imagine?

What if we'd handed the domain it to some soft-bellied placater that would hand it over to the first Satoshi impersonator that demanded it forcefully enough?

Do I trust him? No.  Would I want to do business with him? Not if I could avoid it. If we wound back the clock to 2011 knowing his personality would I have recommended inviting him to help maintain the domain?  No.

But would that have been a terrible mistake?  Very likely yes.

At the time many of the likely alternatives are ones that would have turned out much, much worse (especially since many of the not obviously worse options would have or actually did turn it down).

As someone else who has at times answered the calling to do what was necessary to protect what matters, I don't think my actions should be above judgement. To conceal that I've found Cobra's actions wanting would be a lie, but to deny his success at the most critical thing I could have asked of him would also be one. I think where I stood to act where others didn't all I could ask is that people judge me against the alternatives. And as far as Bitcoin.org goes, Cobra compares very well.

But that doesn't mean I have to like him or trust him.

[bonesjonesreturns]

Some wanted more color on my thoughts about cobra (and this was too long to fit in the trust system comments).

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

I don't know Cobra well.  I don't think anyone does: We can't as a consequence of his anonymity.

But I don't have much doubt that Cobra is a rough man in the above sense.  Brash and at times apparently erratic.  When I trusted him with confidences, he broke them.  Unrepentantly.  He created drama in the community, for reasons that I don't understand or maybe no reason at all.  Just because he's Cobra.

I've seen him lash out in places that I think didn't come close to deserving it-- and we have so much toxicity from outright enemies of Bitcoin, so it hurts all the more from people who should be working toward a common end.  Why?  Because it moved?  I cannot say.

He's abused me personally, calling me evil in public for little reason.  I'm not alone.  At times Cobra can be the kind of ally that makes you think longingly about the company of enemies.

But when things were broken and and really deserved criticism and when many people bit their tongues, Cobra was there also ready to speak up and say what was necessary.

When mobs were being swayed by popular whim, Cobra held strong.

From what I can tell Cobra more or less doesn't give a fuck about what anyone else thinks for better, or for worse.

In many cases I agree with his positions but strongly believe he often promotes them in a counter productive way that creates drama for no good reason.  I don't think it's because he intends to, but maybe because he doesn't really care what people might say or think.

But Bitcoin.org?   He protected it.  Yet, across the years he managed to drive off some extremely valuable contributors and left many in the community stressed that would get turned into something anti-bitcoin.  But he hasn't corrupted the site or handed it to someone who would, he just didn't know or didn't care to say the right words to inspire people's confidence that he wouldn't.

But when I think about how it could have gone instead of Cobra... I shiver.  The ill-fated Bitcoin Foundation wanted to control it-- could you imagine?

What if we'd handed the domain it to some soft-bellied placater that would hand it over to the first Satoshi impersonator that demanded it forcefully enough?

Do I trust him? No.  Would I want to do business with him? Not if I could avoid it. If we wound back the clock to 2011 knowing his personality would I have recommended inviting him to help maintain the domain?  No.

But would that have been a terrible mistake?  Very likely yes.

At the time many of the likely alternatives are ones that would have turned out much, much worse (especially since many of the not obviously worse options would have or actually did turn it down).

As someone else who has at times answered the calling to do what was necessary to protect what matters, I don't think my actions should be above judgement. To conceal that I've found Cobra's actions wanting would be a lie, but to deny his success at the most critical thing I could have asked of him would also be one. I think where I stood to act where others didn't all I could ask is that people judge me against the alternatives. And as far as Bitcoin.org goes, Cobra compares very well.

But that doesn't mean I have to like him or trust him.

This looks like a post of excellent quality.
I can't say that I have validated all of the claims you have made. However from reading some of your other posts and looking through some of your judgements on things,  you are appear to be an honest and straightforward  person. Also I like the way you will engage in a step by step break down and analysis of peoples posts and give them fair objective appraisal with no apparent care for the popularity of the outcome.

I have read a few of cobra's posts and found him to be very straight talking person who's opinions I largely agree with ( meta board I dont read any others except rep)

The very most important points to me are that he has handed bitcointalk freely to theymos without doing damage to the forum, and as you say has looked after bitcoin.org amazingly considering through those times what could have happened.

I'm glad you made this post. I find it quite ungrateful and disgusting how some here have tried to ruin his name completely. Okay you guys didn't always get along and were not perfectly aligned in every decsion ,but it is nice you can remain objective and give a balanced and credible appraisal of an important character in bitcoin history.

The guy is solid.

[krishnaverma]

I have a question. How much did you pay for registering the domain first time ?

[hv_]

I have a question. How much did you pay for registering the domain first time ?

good point - but I bet you could look that up. 

[slancer]

I have a question. How much did you pay for registering the domain first time ?

"registration price" of an org domain is around $9