Topic: Can we discuss an alternative entity to the bitcoin foundation? (Read 3174 times)

Yes this forum has a lot of members and it a great place, but it doesn't contain all the people involved in bitcoin. So I think if an entity branded itself as "Representative of XY forums" a lot of people will dismiss it as, "well I am not part of that forum, I am not going to read farther". Where we branded for the eco-system that is bitcoin we can reach more and have them actually listen.

But what about the people that still believe in bitcoin? I still believe in bitcoin, nothing against litecoin, I just like bitcoin better. I get what you are saying thou.


I agree bitcoin can run just fine on it's own. But think of it as a place that you can use to voice your opinion and actually be heard. Where you have powerful people willing to put their energy into things you would care about. One of the biggest problems in the bitcoin eco-system is monopolies. It is hard thing to avoid when because it is so new.

I think this should be something not affiliated with the forum, that seems unprofessional to me. This is bitcoin it should be something that is involved more in the eco-system.

excellent discussion.

so, we must think of this problem in the right context.

We are a highly decentralized group, with different backgrounds, nationalities, languages.

If we are to do this we must be fully decentralized within the world culturally and ideologically.
How do we create this?

How do we reach consensus on what we know, believe or trust?

How do we reach consensus on what we should do?

How do we interface with the legacy governing system?

As a decentralized group, knowing what we know is more difficult to gauge than anything, getting a % of who believes what is also difficult. We must do this efficiently and transparently indeed. The foundation of a Direct Democracy system must be that of openness, openness so profound that it would be considered the most Open project ever made.

And this can be done now using Bitmessage, this is what I propose.

We use Bitmessage to broadcast our beliefs and propositions, our polls and ideas. These statements would be broadcast to a public ledger with the hash of the post, which can be downloaded BitTorrent style to save people the hassle of downloading all the posts; Yes, a Blockchain.

people can be nodes for democracy downloading the whole Direct Democracy ledger, and allowing people to find the posts they want to find, or giving them web interfaces to the posts to be downloaded dynamically in a p2p fashion.
People can also simply download the posts they believe in, distribute those and erase posts you disagree with to prevent them from being distributed. The more people believe in a post the faster it will propagate.

All the posts would be categorized and linked to all relevant and related information, a web of categories and associations. Each post can be given a secondary hash that is simply the metadata for the categories given by the OP, they would be able to change what they want their posts to be categorized or associated with without affecting the hash of the original post.

Each person can sign their messages to guarantee the source of the post.

The more people have a particular hash to share the more likely it is what the community believes, knows, or is trying to figure out collectively, if it's spam or just plain bad... no one will keep it. the hashes always remain on the ledger, but not on peoples hard drives.

This would at least get us agreeing.

maybe it's less about "electing" people, and should be more about building a communications infrastructure. I guess bitcointalk is already that to an extent, what with all the threads expressing outrage etc.. But imagine "Anonymous" style campaigns, where some communications channel or something is created for a particular issue as and when the need arises.

What is the *purpose* of the original foundation? What aspects is it desirable to replace, or provide an alternative to? Answer that, otherwise it's just a foundation for the sake of it and being contrarian.

- funding developments / improvements?
- promoting bitcoin?

Both these things already happen on bitcointalk, with bounties, and with the various threads "let's get X to accept bitcoin, how do I explain Bitcoin to Y".

And if these two things are all a foundation would exist for, then the solution could be something as simple as a new forum with precisely two boards, one for promoting of projects that need funding, another for organising bitcoin marketing "campaigns". (Or perhaps implemented as a Reddit / Hacker News style voting system).

Maybe also a curated Q&A section where verified journalists can ask questions. (or just a heavily moderated Q&A forum where duplicates are removed and questions are heavily focussed on current events in Bitcoin land).

You called for power to the community. This forum makes for a large part of the community.

For the sake of decentralization, I suggest several alternative entities.

Are you talking about the blockchain?

What about something like a delegated direct democracy?

Also I suggested a Bitcointalk Community Senate here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/rfc-bitcointalk-senate-334419 (though the discussion went a little ot) as a base rooted counter point.

I believe that the alternative is called Litecoin.

I'd like to see some kind of Kickstarter type thing solely for Bitcoin related projects. Maybe it exists? If so, it needs popularising..

Bounties in the Project Development forum are a good part.

I suppose there is: https://bitcoinstarter.com/projects/active?category_id=19

But reading that is all a bit hit-and-miss. Perhaps it's better to fund actual developer(s)...

but yeah.. maybe some sort of counter-foundation; a group with the purpose of developing or promoting the anonymity enhancing aspects of bitcoin.

I haven't joined the regular foundation, but this "counter-foundation" would be something I'd join.

Or maybe, just a "shim" foundation, a small group of people/marketers who work to promote projects relevant to the anonymity aspects of bitcoin. e.g. I don't much read the project development forum, but quickly scanning it I see a few things I should probably donate to. Wouldn't it be nice to get notifications of some sort for the best or most anonymity enhancing "original-satoshi-vision" of these projects? (and those run by devs with a good track record). And weekly updates/newsletters about this, updates on projects most needing funding etc.

Perhaps even we can donate to this foundation, and then when a certain amount of BTC is received, all members hold a vote on which project to be funded. (That way, some larger projects can be funded, rather than many smaller ones...)

e.g.

- community propose and vote on some btc projects
- nominate a destination funds address for, say, the top 10 voted on projects
- everybody sends money to the address of their favourite project
- at the end (either indicated by a time limit, or a specific combined total desired), the project with the most bitcoin "wins", and all bitcoins are combined and just this single project is funded

or maybe this counter-foundation doesn't involve itself at all with actual dev work, their only job (and donations go towards) raising awareness and marketing/promoting existing projects/kickstarters that fulfil some specific "Bill of Bitcoin Rights". (To be written... )

/rambling

reposting this from other thread because I feel it's relevant:

Whatever you do, base it not in rhetoric but in code.

You can't stop the Foundation from meeting with regulators at this point. That shipped has sailed. However, if you disagree with changes they make to the protocol you can have the code be your protest; disable and otherwise hinder redlisting efforts, etc...

But just imagine if the Foundation dissolves, who talks to the government? Someone has to; whoever takes their place probably won't have a private forum you can peruse and speak your mind. We might not even know who they are.

So what's that saying about keep your friends close your enemies closer...

My reasoning behind having multiple trade organizations is just that; in order to combat red/blacklisting by uniting business owners who oppose such a thing. That's not the only benefit of course, but it's a major one that is highly relevant today.

I don't really see a reason for another "Foundation."

Bitcoin can run on it's own just fine. All it does is open the door to bad things like red and blacklisting coins.

I wouldn't mind having one or several trade organizations open to any and all businesses that use bitcoin, where owners can voice their own opinion separately from the foundation, and perhaps vote - again, separately from the foundation.

Alternatives for people of differing opinions are important for a democracy to work. And seeing as bitcoin is primarily an economic tool today, I feel that trade organizations/groups are key, just as political parties are in democratic countries.

You can't have just 1 party, you need several in order to more accurately represent the people's different opinions.

That is exactly what I am trying to do. Completion will fix them, it is kinda hard when you have major bitccoin businesses and most of the dev team with them, but I am trying.

No, if you don't like the foundation, fix it, don't just abandon the idea and walk away.

A decentralised solution for a decentralised currency. That's crazy talk

I don't want a place to do that - I want lots of places to do that!

Let there be many Bitcoin foundations, instead of one.

Bitcoin has already started the slide down the slippery slope.



Fortunately, there are many altcoins still standing strong by Satoshi's ideal of an independent and free currency. The next step in the evolution is the emergence of the altcoin.

Brilliant!  Let's do it!

Personally, my alternative to the Bitcoin foundation is me, and the voluntary relationships I form that involve Bitcoin.