Topic: Should Peter Vessenes resign as the Executive Director for Bitcoin Foundation ? - page 5. (Read 24387 times)

There is a big difference between "we’d be happy to be regulated" and "we concede that some amount of regulation in inevitable".

Mr. Vessenes welcomes regulation because he believes that he is in a position where regulation will give him a competitive advantage. No one can deny that financial regulation has become a major subsidy for the too-big-to-fail-banks. Mr. Vessenes is looking for a similar subsidy through regulation of bitcoin.

@ Herodes: I was referring more to the community people who are really intereseted in bitcoin, not the average user.

And I think we would be enough to contribute a relative small amount to an idea which helps to protect independence.
Look at all the crowd funding projects. Nobody can say that this concept is not working already!

I do not know how much budget is needed for the core development team.
To get a rough estimation we could have a look to the foundation. What is the budget it has gathered yet.  

Let´s sum up what the foundation gets in from the membership fees:
115 lifetime members 115 x 1.9 BTC = 218,5 BTC
211 annual members 211 x 0.19 BTC = 40,09 BTC
2 platinium members: 2x 758.4 BTC = 1516.8 BTC
7 silver members (between 7.6 and 37.9 BTC):
    min: 7x 7.6 BTC = 53.2 BTC
    max: 7x 37.9 BTC = 265.3 BTC

So the overall budget in the foundation would be between: 1828,59 and 2040,69 BTC.
Here you see also the problem that 2 companies fund between 74% and 83% of the budget!
That is for sure not a good situation!

I would like to see it funded in a more decentralized manner.
How would it look without the company funds?
So if you roughly count with 2000 BTC and 300 individual members it would be about 6,6 BTC per member. That does not sound an amount which would be impossible to contribute. I assume there would be more members contributing if the idea is clear and straight.

I wanted to join the foundation, but after reading more about it I was getting more and more sceptical.
If there would be a clearly defined donation page where the members are supporting only the technical development without all the complexity of the politics, I think it would be easier for people to contribute.
Of course the amount anyone contribute could be flexible and open, so anyone can contribute to his personal possibilities.

Submissive/opportunistic scum (feel free to add morally degenerated) ...?

What other interpration of “We’d be happy to be regulated,” is possible? Oh, he is a cool business man, doing the Coinlab-thing (I really like the website design and the idea of renting/providing computation power). So it's tactical submissivness for opportunistic/idealistic reasons. This is how they teach you (in school/home/...) to deal reasonable and nice with the more and more enlarging monster of govermental  tyranny and other bullies.

On a sidenote, some have profited, but for someone to profit, someone else must lose out. The only ones who are 'guaranteed' to turn a profit are the ones facilitating exchange services. But Bitcoin in itself has a larger value than only it's exchange rate against the $, and I'm sure most users would not object contributing to building and maintaining the bitcoin infrastructure.

Lets revisit some of Gavins original ideas about the foundation:



I really like the idea of small decentralized independent groups instead of a central foundation.
Maybe a central foundation could server more as an umbrella for these task forces.
One of Gavins initial points was the payment of the core developers. It is now covered by the foundation but could be better handled from a more open and democratic structure.
Why not create a project where any bitcoiners can contribute with donations to the core dev team to get the independence back?
It would be really a shame if the community could not collect the money needed for salary and other development costs. Many people have already made a fortune with bitcoins so lets share some of that!

I don't know Gavin personally, but I know of a lot of people that would give up some liberty and independence for a steady paycheck. Vessenes provides that for him.

And what better method than cornering the market is there than approaching the biggest player and 'take over' their business ?

We must be incredibly naive if we think that major business players enter the market for any other reason that serving their own business interests. I don't say that all businesses are purely motivated by financial gains, but take that element away, and most players will obviously withdraw from the scene.

Yes this thread is a discussion about Peter Vessenes, you can call it conspiracy theory but I see lack of transparency and possibility of conflict of interest.

Peter Vessenes is Executive Director, Chairman of the Board, and Treasurer of the Bitcoin Foundation.
He is also the CEO of Coinlab and teamed up with Mark Karpeles of MtGox

The Foundation is registered at the same address as Coinlab.

THE BITCOIN FOUNDATION, INC. DBA THE BITCOIN FOUNDATION - http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603279667
Coinlab Inc - http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603158383

Gavin first mooted the idea of a foundation on October 25 2011 here:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-foundation-49841

Yet Peter Vessenes registered the domain BitCoinFoundation.org almost twelve months earlier at the address of Coinlab

Domain Name:BITCOINFOUNDATION.ORG
Created On:06-Dec-2010 21:40:58 UTC
Last Updated On:11-Jan-2013 07:01:39 UTC
Expiration Date:06-Dec-2021 21:40:58 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:1API GmbH (R1724-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:PVB13589495-DUYX
Registrant Name:Peter Vessenes
Registrant Organization:Bitcoin Foundation
Registrant Street1:Suite 300, 71 Columbia St

http://whois.domaintools.com/bitcoinfoundation.org

Some call it conspiracy theory, Gavin called it "tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy-mongering"

I call BS

They should take a proactive role in suggesting where the regulation should be and lobbying legislation when it comes up. They should also start a dialogue with the membership to discuss regulation and how it impacts them....Oh wait


Yeah...guess that one isn't happening....

I agree completely

All this conspiracy theory talk is off-topic. This thread is a discussion about Peter Vessenes' opinion that Bitcoin should be regulated.

Personally, I think that if the Bitcoin Foundation is going to promote the idea of regulating Bitcoin, then it is not an organization that I'm comfortable supporting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VC58gjnjY Leave the internet alone 

Gavin, a simple mailing address on the contact form would put my fears to rest:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/contact

I sent you all 25 bitcoins to be a lifetime member. I'm glad I paid to support your work, but in retrospect, I wish I had just sent you some bitcoins instead of to the people signing your paycheck.

If the Bitcoin Foundation can't see fit to have a mailing address associated with their name, I'll continue to counsel people to hold onto their bitcoins instead of donating them to the foundation or to just send some btc as donations to individual developers.

Lack of a physical address makes the foundation looks sketchy and casting aspersions on people who wonder why it seems so sketchy is counter-productive.

Yes and no. The issue with any single video is that either it is too brief and doesn't explain concepts like value or anonymity in depth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um63OQz3bjo or they are biased in a direction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoK8HXMSsNg

Also there is no overarching narrative promising the listener if they commit, then they will end up with some set of knowledge. The goal of the core lecture path is to be a contract with the student that they can both understand basic concepts like why bitcoins have value and how to spend them, but also understand more advanced concepts if they desire like the security concepts of bitcoin, mining and the inner workings of the wallet clients.

Over time this will become a perfect foundation alongside bitcoin.it and bitcoin.stackexchange for anyone who starts with no knowledge and wants to fully integrate himself into the community at whatever level he is comfortable with. We just don't have this Matt. Look at codeacademy.com. In a few years that site will be the starting point for all wannabe web developers. This course seeks to do the same for bitcoin.

Why not compare yourself to something else free and open? Like the thousands of youtube videos that already exist? Will you make those videos obsolete?

The project already has seven contributors making video lectures and also several core devs offering to help review the upcoming lectures on their wallet software. I'm building a website for the project and I'm trying to recruit volunteer members to continue the work. It just got started on Saturday last week. About 400 people signed up for those lectures. That's pretty good progress for a week.

Yes I do believe that if this takes off those outside of it will become irrelevant because a larger and larger percentage of the bitcoin world will have started at that class. Omission can reduce ones standing. But guess what, unlike the foundation, this project is free and open to all. Anyone can contribute. Anyone can help make or vet content. Including you, in fact I'd like you to help.

It was a tongue in cheek in reference to "Head of the Bitcoin Education Project". Seriously though, every other time I see you post it's about how no one matters anymore unless they sign up for your udemy videos.

Let me guess, you think 9/11 was an inside job by the Bush administration and we never sent a man to the moon?

This is exactly why I don't come here much any more, and exactly why the Foundation forums are real-name-only, member-only.  None of us have time to respond to all the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy-mongering (I don't remember why "Bitcoin Foundation" was originally a legal entity in the midwest; something about an aborted previous attempt to get one started by... maybe Mt. Gox?  who cares? why does that matter? focus on the present and future, stop worrying about how things weren't done perfectly in the past exactly how you wanted them to happen).

Sigh.  Ok, I'm going to go back to my default "don't feed the trolls" now, and actually get some work done.

My identity? My bio has been posted for all to see. Who do you think I am?

It'd be easier to give you respect if you weren't lying about your identity and constantly telling people that if they aren't part of your "educational organization" then they will become "obsolete". Try being honest and humble for once. It does wonders for the soul.

Gavin is a developer not the leader- if there ever could be- of bitcoin. He is being paid, and rightfully so, to do groundbreaking work with a small staff and without the authority to enforce a unified vision. That's hard and I'm proud that he has been able to accomplish so much in such a short period of time.

We need to be concurrently focusing on three things guys.

(1) The integration of Bitcoin into the Mainstream as a legitimate and easy to use currency
(2) Convincing large companies like Google, Paypal and Amazon to support bitcoin
(3) Unifying the community around an educational project to ensure all misconceptions, misinformation and general ignorance are removed from the conversation

Doing these three things will guarantee bitcoin never dies nor is regulated out of existence. But you know what it has become clear to me that I don't matter in the foundation's eyes. They want to pursue other things and it's their money so have fun. I'm going to take on the educational project and if anyone wants to join me the door is wide open. We need you.