As I mentioned a few months ago here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/something-big-for-bitcoin-coming-april-15th-959464I said that there would be something big on April 15th so I will cut right to it.
From the post I purposefully posted
NOt TROLLING
with a capitalized "NO TROLLING". This is the first part.
The Internet and especially Bitcoin forums have their fair share of trolls, from the Buttcoin people on reddit to the many people who are heavily invested in their own alt coin that they believe the best way for their coin to succeed is to knock Bitcoin out of the game (so that their cryptocurrency can become the target for the next round of alt coin trolls). There has even been evidence of paid trolls and with the amount of trolls and sock puppets on bitcointalk I would not put it past them being paid as well (see the influx of trolls that will surely join this thread).
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/11/internet_trolls_pose_a_threat_internet_commentators_shouldn_t_be_anonymous.htmlI have been involved with Bitcoin since 2010, back then we were mainly a group of people who wanted to see Bitcoin succeed. Sure we had one or two people that would try to spread FUD to make the price drop but they did so because they too believed in Bitcoin, they just wanted more at cheaper prices. You could go onto the forum and ask serious questions and get serious responses from people who had a similar interest in making Bitcoin grow, and we could coordinate our efforts to further Bitcoin's progress. Now it becomes a matter of trying to play whack a troll with the ignore button.
So I came up with a solution. Utilizing the Bitcoin balance verification functionality already built into BitPools I have developed the BitPools forum.
http://www.bitpools.com/forumEach forum can be set to require that you hold a minimum amount of mBTC to post in the thread. From as little as 1 mBTC (about 20 cents) to as many as is desired by the group of posters. There is already precedent for this with the Whale Club on teamspeak where people have to prove that they have at least 500 bitcoins to participate. Each forum will obviously not require so many bitcoins but it will at least ensure that everyone involved in the discussion at least shares the commonality of having some bitcoins.
A sock puppet or paid trolls will likely be put off by needing to hold so many bitcoins for each user to the point that they hold many of the coins they wish to discredit.
The BitPools forum has been built from the ground up with Bitcoin in mind so it can evolve more easily and effectively to meet the needs of the Bitcoin community. There is no need to wait for a new release from some forum software company or deal with the difficulty of trying to put custom features into something that is not built for Bitcoin. While it is in its infancy right now, I have tried to make the functionality and look a cross between bitcointalk and reddit with threads and forums in an easy to traverse tree structure.
Now to the second part. In building the social media aspect of BitPools into the forum I have also included it into the Pool functionality so that different projects can more easily coordinate their efforts towards the goal of successfully funding their projects.
This brings us to the significance of April 15th.
What if April 15th was just another day? The whole point of BitPools is to replace the outdated concept of governments taxing people to pay for their projects. Instead, it allows groups of people with common interests to pool their money and vote with their bitcoins on the solution that they desire.
Toward this end, BitPools will be hosting the coordinating efforts of creating the first ever seastead (Marinea
http://www.marinea.co). A project to create a self-sustaining town at sea with businesses and housing which will be open to investors who will get a share of the infrastructure. The project has been coordinating via Skype, e-mail and other tools bringing together a very knowledgeable global team of experts around the effort but will more easily be able to coordinate using BitPools social media and voting functionality.
Working with the
Marinea project, BitPools will be adding functionality as the need is identified which can be used for any project that requires such coordination. This includes Project management tools, Gantt chart tools, chat functionality, file share, calendar and more.
By working with the Marinea project, BitPools can demonstrate to all those involved, just how voting with your bitcoins can work toward achieving project goals which can hopefully translate into a new era without taxes and a voluntary society on the seas as a demonstration to the rest of the world that there is a better alternative than the outdated systems we have now.
Finally, BitPools will be utilizing Bitrated (
https://www.bitrated.com) as their API allows for third party coordination so that all contracts can easily be escrowed with trusted arbitration for the most fair means of funding projects. It will also make available the use of Bitrated trust within the user profile and forum software to further help with interaction without the random troll or sock puppet steering the discussion.
It is BitPools' goal to help anyone with a project in mind to most effectively coordinate their efforts toward achieving their goals. Go try it out at
http://www.bitpools.comtl;dr A new Bitcoin forum with bitcoin balance features to discourage trolling and the first ever seastead will be using BitPools for coordination efforts.