Topic: The truth about the Bitcoin Foundation - page 2. (Read 2999 times)

There have been too many dodgy characters like Karples associated with it for it to be taken seriously. The only useful thing it does is pay the core devs.

Thanks for laying this out.  Up until now I thought the foundation was pretty much a force for good for bitcoin acceptance and to respond to issues from the general public about bitcoin and represent bitcoin in front of officials.  Now I'm not so sure.  By definition foundations are supposed to have a stable endowment that they administer so if 90% of their funds are really gone that is exceptional mis-management.

Any company (a few obvious examples would be Red Hat, Canonical, Google, IBM) is free to hire developers and/or find volunteer developers to contribute to whatever GNU or Linux projects they want. Those developers submit patches just like you or I could, if the project's developer community (especially core devs) likes the patches they get included. Some of these people eventually end up getting commit access or even being core developers on their chosen project. For companies like Red Hat and Canonical who package their own Linux distributions, if their patches aren't accepted upstream they're still free to maintain those patches and package them with their own distro.

No central authority is really needed beyond those people who have commit access on GitHub (or wherever else the code is stored) reviewing patches and deciding which ones to merge.

The Bitcoin Foundation is stupid, I don't why people are supporting it.

Everyone has the right to know the truth:

- The Foundation has almost no money left, and just fired 90% of its people. Some will stay on as volunteers.
- Core dev can no longer be funded by it, and Patrick Murck is trying to re-create a new Foundation just for core dev, because the current name is tarnished. Do not fall for this.
- The current Executive Director (Patrick Murck), will be gone in 2 weeks, and they are trying to find the next person to blame everything on.
- Jim Harper was threatened for doing a press release which was (barely) critical of the Foundation after he got elected. The Foundation tries to make sure we hide the truth by subtly threatening us on a regular basis.
- If I get asked to leave the Foundation for telling the truth, so be it. The truth is being told.

Moving forward:

- A special trust fund is being created and I will donate several 100k to pre-pay Gavin’s, Wladimirs and some other core devs wage for the next year (if they choose to accept). The control of this trust fund will be handed over to the core devs, who can decide who can join it. Alternatively, we can give voting power to everyone who puts money in it (pro-rata). I will also organize crowdfunds and help make this fund public. At no point do I want to have any control whatsoever.

- It is up to the members of the Bitcoin Foundation to decide what they want to do now. The bylaws allow for a special board meeting to be called by 15% of members. I would recommend you to do so and ask for all information to be released so you can learn the truth. Additionally I would recommend for you to replace the whole board if you want this organization to last. Alternatively you can vote to shut it down and get your money back. There might not be enough money left in the Foundation to pay its members back, but I will personally try to help make up the difference, even though I have not been part of it.

The lesson for all of us in Bitcoin is to never put any trust in a centralized org again that wanted to represent Bitcoin or the Core Development of Bitcoin.


Well, I have a new respect for "the truth".

The impact of someone bitching about BF management on reddit for easy karma? I'm waiting for them to actually get things done before I'm praising them...

Won't respond but by me, too many shady people are in foundation and too many bought their membership :| sad....

We need books that teach us about bitcoin core source code at the same time as they teach us all the C++ Standard Template Library and prigranning knowledge we may be missing.
Learning C++ with the bitcoin source code without Master...
All that we know you will find difficult even if you know some C++ and OOP.

I'm glad the new board members are having an impact. Not particularly professional how things have been handled, imho, but the fact is that things are being discussed openly, and that's a good thing. The foundation is what the members make of it. I think lack of funds will make it easier to set priorities...I like the idea of having core mission expenses being paid for by lighthouse style fundraising. If people don't like an idea, it won't get funded. If they do, the support base could be much broader.

words spoken by a true bitcoin foundation life member in it for the fiat

example even from just your last post ; "k, I didn't get rich arguing about bitcoin. I got here understanding it."

so I ask you whats the point of being a alternative to the greedy bankers controlled fiat, if those in control of bitcoin are the new greedy bankers?

So many words, so little understanding.

This could not be said more accurately or succinctly.

This does not affect bitcoin negative at all. I hope they shut it down.

Why is everyone so obsessed with TBF? There's enough alternative foundations around to not care about this unappointed and misorganised group of snobs.

If you're willing to hire people, and you have the money, you get to decide whom to hire.  If you were to hire another full-time dev, I'm quite sure the ones hired by the Bitcoin foundation would welcome his or her contributions, the same way they welcome volunteers. 

So sad you mentioned this...  It made me realize this is how the world outside of crypto think mostly.

I mean I believe cryptocurrencies could be big one day, but sometimes, with BTC being the currency of the future, could be a pipe dream.

gotta love when the survival of a controlling body of a decentralised  cryptocurrencies hinges on fiat   

Actually you will find most stuffs related Bitcoin are completely terrible jokes, think about Mt.Gox or Bter, various scams, drug/gambling, money laundering, shity coins ....

This foundation went from something terrible to a complete joke very fast. It's the same old story: the higher the shelves, the more useless they become.

I hope the foundation simply disappears once and for all. It has been causing too much trouble. The people who could push forward such initiative don't have the time to do so, and even if they had, they wouldn't like to have their names associated with a Bitcoin Foundation.

Also, it's a good time to stop crediting these guys and stop them from being news.

The Foundation was meant to be a representative for Bitcoin in the mainstream world (especially in mainstream business from what I gather). It was supposed to be a some sort of a democratic frontend for the decentralized and free backend, dealing with all the bullshit the non-bitcoiners threw at it. This, however, got twisted to something much less desirable and turned into the organization most of the people in the community feared it will become - an influential group full of corrupt rich people with the intent of becoming even more wealthy and push out anyone from the Foundation that wanted something other (for example, positive development of cryptocurrencies, clearing misconceptions about Bitcoin in the mainstream society or general promotion and spreading awareness about a free and cheaper alternative to transact money, especially online).

Although, some might over-emphasize the influence of the Foundation in the Bitcoin enthusiast community but they are quite a big figure which some might notice if they haven't put in much though about Bitcoin or are new to it.

There we go again, one organisation representing Bitcoin?

We need to keep with the decentralised flow. Theres many developers on this forum, and many who are also capable of developing the bitcoin core. Im sure some would be willing to freely commit to the project.
I still cant understand the reason to have a decentralised system, where almost all the power is unquestionably handed to a single group of people, who can slow down development, get threatened by government entities, get infiltrated by corrupt entities, and enforce restrictions or changes to Bitcoin freely, and at any moment.

My point is, Bitcoin is a decentralised system, and it needs to stay decentralised at whatever cost. Theres no point of Bitcoin being decentralised if we still require a single organisation to make choices for everyone, which will ultimately impact the foreseeable future of Bitcoin and the global adoption of the blockchain.