Topic: THE BITCOIN FOUNDATION, INC. - page 2. (Read 5532 times)

Right-o. Piling heaps upon heaps of this credibility thingie by picking the opaque title to incorporate under.

It happens to make not one whit of difference what federal statute says, not like we were about to prosecute a bunch of self-proclaimed entrepreneurs for fraud. What matters here is that there's quite reasonable expectation from the general community to see reports. If Satoshi Dice can do it, if MPEx can do it then indeed so can this foundation whatever it is.

And for that matter, PROOF that the donated funds are used for the declared purposes, rather than as a general float fund for Coinbase/whatever other Yscambinator "ventures". This means statements signed with addresses, so everyone can see when funds move.

Presto.

You mean they've never put out a report on how the BTC they collect mostly goes to provide the sitting CEO/Treasurer (nice going there) capital for his dead "business"? Heh.

There we go, stifled and buried deep in the forums. The most important revelation since the genesis of Bitcoin. You should be ashamed of yourself.

*** Can you please post a scan of the original by-laws for THE BITCOIN FOUNDATION, INC. we wish to see Satoshi's signature as a founding member. ***

Confirmed: One of my posts has been deleted. We have awoken the monster. We must continue on while we have momentum and they are scrambling and covering up. We are working within the belly of the beast here.

gmaxwell, thanks a lot for the detailed answer!

I don't mind a professional league, but it seems that Bitcoin Foundation should be (3) and for business side of it there should be something like Bitcoin Businesses Association, which would be (6).

Otherwise it seems somewhat unjust, that business interests are trying to present themselves as the face of the community. But I guess, it's too late to do anything about it now

There's no point in organizing something like "The REAL Bitcoin Foundation"

США взяла под контроль Bitcoin и выставил его на риски системы США законной. Товарищи, мы должны собраться вместе, чтобы взять под контроль код. Satoshi призывает к нашей помощи.

Los Estados Unidos han tomado el control de Bitcoin y ha expuesto a los riesgos del sistema legal de los Estados Unidos. Camaradas, hay que reunirse para tomar el control de la base de código. Satoshi está pidiendo nuestra ayuda.


米国は、Bitcoinのを制御していると米国の法的システムのリスクにさらされています。仲間は、私たちは、コードベースの制御を取るために一緒に収集する必要があります。サトシたちは助けを求めている。

美国已采取的控制Bitcoin的和已经暴露了美国法律制度的风险。同志们，我们必须聚集在一起，采取控制的codebase。聪呼吁我们的帮助。

Les Etats-Unis ont pris le contrôle de Bitcoin et l'a exposée aux risques du système juridique des États-Unis. Camarades, nous devons nous rassembler pour prendre le contrôle du code source. Satoshi lance un appel à notre aide.

De Verenigde Staten heeft de controle over Bitcoin genomen en heeft zij blootgesteld aan de risico's van de Verenigde Staten rechtssysteem. Kameraden, we moeten samenkomen om de controle van de codebase te nemen. Satoshi vraagt ​​om onze hulp.

Usono faris kun Bitcoin kaj elmontris gxin al la riskoj de Usono leĝa sistemo. Kamaradoj, ni devas kunvenigu al fari kun la codebase. Satoshi vokas nian helpon.

It's a 501(c)(6)— a professional league, not a 501(c)(3) charity.

A 501(c)(3) engages in religious, scientific, educational charitable purposes and are obligated to act in the public interest. They're prohibited from certain political activities (they can lobby for their interests but cannot support candidates and lobbying must be limited to some minority part of their expenditure) and must meet various tests for their funding coming from the public (or other charities and government) sources. The IRS has been clamping down on charity applications now and seems to be demanding more justification that an organization's purpose is in fact charitable.   The plus side of all this trouble is that donations are tax deductible, and there is a certain degree of public legitimacy created due to both the charitable mission as well as the public support requirements demonstrating that the org isn't just acting in one parties interest.

501(c)(6) organizations are professional interest organizations such as chambers of commerce, sports leagues, etc. Rather than acting in the public interest they act in the business interest of their members. (And their income is not taxed, because it's assumed to already be taxed— and only replacing activity that the members could have done directly, but it is not tax deductible).

The lobbying and political limitations as well as the general hoop-jumping to get the classification are reasons that if I were creating a Bitcoin Foundation I might consider making it a (c)(6) instead of a (c)(3). On the other hand, the lack of a requirement to serve the public interests will likely always feed accusations of the organization being a pawn for its primary funders, and along with the lack of deductability are arguments against (6) and in favor of (3) most obvious to me.  IIRC there are also fewer rules about the disposition of assets which can make it easier for a large sponsor fund a (c)(6), because IIRC a (c)(6) can return assets to people where a (c)(3) can only dispose of assets by transferring them to another charity.

I think that even if we had a 501(c)(3) Bitcoin org, the Bitcoin ecosystem would still probably need a 501(c)(6) one to optimally enable collaboration of the large commercial interests.

Reading some of the responses in this thread is interesting....

Personally I think the foundation is a good idea, someone has to bring bitcoin to the masses and it's not going to happen easily.

* Alex shamefully goes away to educate himself about corporations... 

It is registered as non profit.

Is this even legal? You can register a corporation without requiring any info from all the founding members?

And I am surprised they made it "Inc". Why not non-profit, like Wikipedia? Especially if they ask for donations. I can understand somewhat the Ripple folks, but Bitcoin?

So what?

I don't hate Bitcoin. I think the facts speak for themselves, THE BITCOIN FOUNDATION, INC. is running Bitcoin now, Bitcoin is deeply linked to a United States corporation and Satoshi is a member of THE BITCOIN FOUNDATION, INC.

Some people will like this, others will dislike it and most won't care or even know. Exposing the truth is not fear mongering.

"if any thing can make it fail, this foundation can"

Anon

gmaxwell: haters are going to hate.

I don't share many of the concerns in this thread—  I think it's natural, expected, and a welcome thing that businesses and other interested parties should come together to collaborate to advance the cause of Bitcoin.

I'm also confident that Gavin can behave responsibly relative to his dual roles, and at the same time— nothing he does with the codebase is a secret, all changes are cross reviewed by other developers (and anyone else who is interested!). If the review process works then there is little to worry about even if you do not trust Gavin, and if it doesn't work then you have worse things to worry about than the foundation being a boogieman.

You can help out by following changes to the reference codebase and asking questions. This would probably be a lot more productive than the fear-mongering on the forum— which does nothing to prevent badness, and is pretty demotivating to people who (in all likelihood) are completely honestly motivated.  If you have a concern the best thing to do is step up and eliminate it by guarding the system— if your concerns were misplaced, no harm done, you might still stop a failure from a direction you didn't expect— if they weren't misplaced you'll help stop a bad outcome ... and doing that avoids offending people with false accusations in the times your concerns were misplaced.  Complaining on the forum like this, smearing peoples motivations and such— makes people write off the forum as a bunch of poorly socialized chicken-littles.

I do think that it's kind of odd to see one thread of people complaining that the bitcoin foundation is some ominous force, while other people from the forum complain that they're not grabbing enough!

Making it clear that the Bitcoin Foundation is a professional promotion organization like a chamber of commerce and doesn't own or control Bitcoin— any more than a chamber of commerce controls or represents all business— is a good thing but it can be done without accusations or conspiracy theories that make it sounds like the claiming person has other motivations.

If the general counsel of the THE BITCOIN FOUNDATION, INC. fumbled on its first document (the by-laws) by including Satoshi. What will it fumble next?

Listing Satoshi was something I reacted to too.
I haven't seen anywhere that he have said that he is a member of this club