Topic: Calling out the Bitcoin Foundation Scam. - page 7. (Read 22530 times)

So the bitcoin foundation (which had nothing to do with founding bitcoin and created itself without involvement from the bitcoin community or its creator) gets a start as some incredibly overhyped Announcement (yeah, with a capital A apparently).
THIS is that big announcement that would bring more stability to bitcoin? A self proclaimed "bitcoin foundation" that on its own decides how to best help bitcoin?
To me, this just looks like a lot of e-peening by a bunch of people who on their own have become too invested in bitcoin and who are in effect decentralizing it by pulling to much attention and too much involvement onto themselves, thereby hindering the openness and freedom of bitcoin.
Why does something that is supposed to be uncontrolled and decentralized need a centralized body to control anything? What if the Bitcoin Foundation starts doing or saying things that a lot of bitcoin users feel is harmful to bitcoin? Can we replace the people in bitcoin foundation?

It will give the "outside world" (filled with evil bankers, corporations and goverments) a centralized point from which to influence bitcoin. (And whoever thinks they will influence it in a direction that is good for bitcoin is just being naive) They can now just talk to THE "Bitcoin Foundation", which happens to also include the major developers, the ones controlling the trademarks, etc.
Under the flag of "not for profit" bitcoin seems to get commercialized. :sad:

Fair enough, they do not own bitcoin, we can set up a rival group etc etc, but I read earlier that they pay Gavin's salary as the lead dev for the bitcoin project. Noone will deny that he deserves to get paid and does a top job, but it's a bit worrying when you have a foundation which has very little confidence put in it by the community being Gavin's 'boss', and have the fate of the currency at their mercy.

Yea, all valid points. Like I say, they aren't beyond criticism. Like it or not, Bitcoin, by its very nature attracts the kind of person with an affinity for risk. Criminals and entrepreneurs share this affinity. And as we've seen, the line between entrepreneur and criminal is blurry, to say the least.

It's important to remember that TBF does not own Bitcoin. Their activities are what THEY think are in Bitcoin's best interest. We don't have to agree, or take any notice. But there's nothing stopping anyone setting up another lobbying group.

Agreed, we do need an organised and dedicated group of people who represent the community. However, who voted these guys in? What input did the bitcoin community as a whole have in the establishment of the foundation, yet alone electing who would be on there? I guess having such shrewd businessman and solid citizens as Mark Karpeles on the board made them think they didn't need that input.

It would be interesting to weigh up the good that the foundation has done compared to the damage that they have done to the brand. It wasn't until the knife was well and truly to the bone that they got rid of Gox and Karpeles. I do not believe for one minute that they were suddenly 'surprised' by what happened over in Tokyo.

+21 million

Agree. This thread is a ridiculous criticism, obviously made by someone with no understanding that Bitcoin is NOT an island. It interfaces in very real ways with centralised, legacy systems - and we need an organised, dedicated focal point.

This doesn't mean the foundation is beyond criticism, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Yeah, what a scam to take peoples membership money and use it to organize conferences, lobby regulators, provide a resource for business and the press, to provide a space to coordinate the volunteer efforts of dozens of people who actually do something. Wow such scam! Only a doggy based coin could save us now.  

He easily does.  Same thing with Sunny King and proof of stake.

Fortunately, they're about done with that so now they can focus on their Coinvoice service. I say fortunately because that means they've had time to help out two local merchants in Austin that got burned by BitPay. (Do you know how embarrassing it is to go around to local merchants convincing them to start accepting Bitcoin and pointing them at the most well-known Bitcoin payment processor just to have them run into existential problems like "not getting paid?")

What do you think this article actually means?  It doesn't mean what Coindesk wrote, it means he's scared to be responsible for something that might decide the fate of the entire planet lol.

http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-bitcoin-companies-support-open-source/

Just start a new one.  Call yourselves "the official foundation", register a domain and go.

How much protocol development has happened in the last year?

2)  A single developer (Gavin) being able to screw up a software update and causing a fork that destroys a 10+ billion dollar business is not an option.  See #1.  People will want to minimize their possible risks to 10-20% loss for attacks or things like this happening.

3)  Demand for anonymous transactions vs open transactions.

4)  Practical hardware/space limitations of a single chain that has already been discussed.

5)  The usage of PoS as a virtual bank.

6)  How easy it is for a government to co-opt, attack, or take over a single chain.  It's much harder to take over or destroy 10 at once.  My estimate is, there will be 5-10 large coins.

7)  Dozens more that I don't feel like typing.

I haven't seen anyone point out that the Bitcoin Foundation pays Gavin's salary, so that he can focus on developing the Bitcoin protocol.

And I doubt Gavin has enough power to hard fork even if he wanted to.

The so called Bitcoin Foundation gives Gavin money but I doubt he would destroy bitcoin for money.

For as long as the Bitcoin Foundation controls the core developers who control the most popular fork of Bitcoin, y'all just blowin' hot air out ye arse.  

How is that good? It's a famous Open Source project, do other big projects pay the dev team?*
*I know many of the .org projects run a .com business, but do they pay the devs?