I will not agree to a "Bitcoin Mining Council."

[ConnerDalfino]

There's no denying it: Bitcoin is the only DECENTRALIZED method of payment in the world. No one controls how it is operated or mined.

Neither mining nor any other council is necessary. A rich person is yet again trying to exert influence over Bitcoin. Bitcoin uses energy and it is not a secret. The choice is yours whether you want to take it or not. It is not Bitcoin that is ruining the world, it is fossil fuel plants, cutting of forests, and millions of factories. Wouldn't it be better if they addressed that?

Why not just use any other Cryptocurrency if they don't like the energy of using Bitcoin? I believe that their biggest concern isn't energy use.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

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[ranochigo]

It is frankly quite pointless. They are not legally bound to the council nor would they face any repercussions by not being included in it. Having something like this is about as useful as the climate change accords that we've signed so far, though environmental concerns has little to no importance to the miner.

Like it or not, major miners could very well have established a consortium of some sort, that isn't public. It won't be implausible to assume that there is already some degree of centralization even within the mining pools or there is already some influence on them. The proposed council just serves as a PR move, IMO.

[mocacinno]

The sad truth is that it doesn't matter if you agree to a council or not... It doesn't matter if I agree to a council or not...

If they don't change the consensus algorithm, but merely do things like not including certain transactions, not relaying certain blocks, not connecting to certain peers,... they don't need our permission to do so.
If they start changing the consensus algorithm (like, for example, switch from POW to POS), they'll most likely create a major fork between them and the miners that did not follow the "council"'s advice.

The truth is that if they do this, the only thing WE can do is start using a different crypto currency, or in case of a fork: keep with the "original" bitcoin and exchange their forked coin for "real" btc asap...
The way we vote is with our wallets: look at bitcoin cash: there was nothing we could do to stop the fork from happening, since Roger did not need our permission to create a fork... But we, as a community, decided to keep using the "original" bitcoin, and not his fork... And at this point his forked altcoin is worth only a fraction of our original coin

[Poker Player]

I had to google it because I didn't know what it was about. I certainly don't like Musk being there, he could go fuck himself and leave Bitcoin alone. As much as they deny it, it looks like a lobby.

[enhu]

The miners will likely do what is being agreed by this so-called council because they want to counter the fud. If in the future they could just go back to coal to mine BTC, there is nothing that this council can do anyway. This time while there is a regulation to be ironed and the fight for green energy, complying would be a good idea. But switching BTC switching to POS is a terrible idea.  

[jossiel]

I think we're going to the point that whether we like it or not, it's inevitable and will happen no matter what the community thinks of it. This is the influence of what money can do to a thing even though it's truly decentralized.

He's making statements that it seems that he's the one that should be followed by saying that miners should use 50% clean energy but ignores what the other contributors in the pollution does. 

[20kevin20]

Wouldn't it be better if they addressed that?

No, because that is controllable while Bitcoin isn't. Meanwhile, Bitcoin's growing very quickly while coal mining plants are boring. See the pattern? The only reason they keep pushing those narratives is that Bitcoin is free.

As far as I know, critical thinking and the "debunking" of various pieces of information is a quite modern thing to do nowadays. They don't seem to care much about debunking this particular piece of information or encourage others to do it.

A Bitcoin mining council is useless and the previous answers are very accurate. You can't enforce something in Bitcoin, because those who don't like the new change will simply move on to another cryptocurrency. It's just a complete waste of resources for something that can easily be changed. The only thing is, if such councils appear then there will be a lot of fuss inside the Bitcoin protocol and community since they'll both be spammed out by both parties - those like me, who care about Bitcoin's decentralization, and those like the council members who only want to censor the blockchain to their own advantage.

[zanezane]

They can help create order in the current chaos of the cryptospace, I am pretty sure that they will have people in mind in this council, look at the Internet consortium, they are doing their best to protect us from total domination of companies and government in the Internet.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

There's no denying it: Bitcoin is the only DECENTRALIZED method of payment in the world. No one controls how it is operated or mined.

Neither mining nor any other council is necessary. A rich person is yet again trying to exert influence over Bitcoin. Bitcoin uses energy and it is not a secret. <snip>

Thoughts? Oh, for a start, how about providing a link to what you are talking about?
Beyond that, a 'council' implies a centralized operating body and that is not going to happen with BTC as it goes against it's guiding principal.

[avikz]

Having a council is not a good idea at all. But again even if a council is formed, they wouldn't have any legal rights to control the mining activities around the world. Does anyone know who proposed such idea?

I am sure whoever proposed it, is trying to claim the ownership over the algorithm. It will give rise to fork events and loot away hash powers. Decentralization will be gone.

[ranochigo]

Thoughts? Oh, for a start, how about providing a link to what you are talking about?
Beyond that, a 'council' implies a centralized operating body and that is not going to happen with BTC as it goes against it's guiding principal.

I'm assuming OP is talking about this: https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/. I've seen quite a few sites mentioning this link.

Having a council is not a good idea at all. But again even if a council is formed, they wouldn't have any legal rights to control the mining activities around the world. Does anyone know who proposed such idea?

Michael Saylor was a proponent of this, and I believe he is involved in this as well. Most of the miners won't want to be regulated in any sense and would probably not join the council, save for the few current members.

I am sure whoever proposed it, is trying to claim the ownership over the algorithm. It will give rise to fork events and loot away hash powers. Decentralization will be gone.

That is not how it works nor would it be realistic.

[pawanjain]

There's no denying it: Bitcoin is the only DECENTRALIZED method of payment in the world. No one controls how it is operated or mined.

Neither mining nor any other council is necessary. A rich person is yet again trying to exert influence over Bitcoin. Bitcoin uses energy and it is not a secret. The choice is yours whether you want to take it or not. It is not Bitcoin that is ruining the world, it is fossil fuel plants, cutting of forests, and millions of factories. Wouldn't it be better if they addressed that?

Why not just use any other Cryptocurrency if they don't like the energy of using Bitcoin? I believe that their biggest concern isn't energy use.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

No true bitcoiner will ever like the idea of the bitcoin mining council. Elon Musk has been making tweets and use his influence to manipulate the market.
He is using his influence to create a mining council and disrupt the decentralization of bitcoin and there's nothing we can do about it until the miners self realize this fact.
This is one of the disadvantages of an open community. It all depends on the miners now.

[BrewMaster]

i don't see anything wrong with that. there is only two direction this can go.
the positive direction is if the Bitcoin Mining Council actually does something to the energy section and makes them move to less polluting solutions and we end up getting a better environment regardless of the "bitcoin" part. and of course the bitcoin miners can gain access to cheaper and cleaner energy produced by the same energy section.

the negative direction is that they don't really do anything and sit around raise some funds and waste some time. which won't affect bitcoin and its decentralization as people seem to be worried about here.

[TangentC]

i don't see anything wrong with that. there is only two direction this can go.
the positive direction is if the Bitcoin Mining Council actually does something to the energy section and makes them move to less polluting solutions and we end up getting a better environment regardless of the "bitcoin" part. and of course the bitcoin miners can gain access to cheaper and cleaner energy produced by the same energy section.

the negative direction is that they don't really do anything and sit around raise some funds and waste some time. which won't affect bitcoin and its decentralization as people seem to be worried about here.

the negative direction, that I foresee,
is that once global they begin to censor transactions as a requirement of their being allowed access to so much electricity by the top world governments.
One of the dangers of PoW requiring so much energy ,
is the fact it can eventually be used to blackmail the miners into censorship compliance
or that energy will be denied and their mining business closes.

[hatshepsut93]

I find it really pathetic that miners and Saylor feel the need to answer to Elon Musk, as if he's some sort of king that decides the fate of Bitcoin. Because I guarantee there would be no "Bitcoin Mining Council." if Musk didn't get involved with Bitcoin, so it's clear that there was never an objective need for this. If a billionaire troll has so much influence, then what will happen if governments start making demands to miners?

[countryfree]

I remember all the guys saying "Trump's not my president", and yet he was. Because the president of the USA is by law the president of all Americans. There's no such thing with that "Bitcoin Mining Council". It only represents the people behind it, not all miners, nor all bitcoiners.