Topic: Thoughts on a new decentralized bitcoin foundation (Read 1807 times)

a true decentralized foundation would be where there is no one 'in power' where the entire community is involved, not just special members. where there is no power, prestige, profile or ego boosting at all..

if you peel away all the layers of uselessness the current foundation has, and kep the core function, then the foundation pretty much can be summed up into 3 area's

1. idea's planned and discussed, suggestions tweaked into something that will help the community
2. jobs listing where people can head hunt certain talents, nominate already known experts, or simply call out to any interested parties
3. form employment / bounties to ensure the idea's become a reality.

all 3 of these area's can be made possible for the whole community to input, self manage, self fund without really any middle men. where the only central part is the domain name which contains all of this information.

EG this forum (bitcointalk) has made many great idea's come into existence, has helped develop many business relationships, employed many people and ad the community scrutinize idea's on their worthiness to actually work in reality.

so something as open as this forum can work. but without being a 'forum' to atleast keep the agenda of bitcoin growth on track and to reduce useless ramblings of trolls.

a new foundation would require the hard hitting people in the industry to join, otherwise it wouldn't have much prestige. but much like others, i don't even see the point in its existence. all it does is give you a bigger profile, which is not necessarily to help bitcoin's development.. but maybe only your own.

people want the power grab from a cryptocurrency that doesn't want centralization.

+1

  Andreas Antonopoulos and Gavin Andresen have my trust, faith, and support too.

 Sometimes it's very tough, and can be quite challenging to rise above. No one can ever be expected to be flawless. These two gentlemen are the types I hope continue to lead Bitcoin. So far they have both shown everyone what true leadership is. Thank You.



Bitcoin is The Future.

This really sounds like somewhat crowdfunding.
In addition, why do we need a foundation for Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is an open decentralized space!

the system of voting and judging who is best is flawed by things like biased people and those with agenda's
NO ONE should be hoarding peoples money (members fee's)
NO ONE should even ask for members fee's
NO ONE should control/limit the number of idea's that can be voted on
NO ONE should control what is valid or invalid

all that is needed is anyone that has an idea and sets out a plan of actions with achievable goals and proof they will forfil those goals. should simply post a public address to receive donations to cover costs and labour.

that way instead of each member paying many bitcoins for memberships where most gets syphoned off to middlemen. each person in the community can donate as much or as little as they like to the projects they like.

that way if there are plans that benefit corporations then those would get funded. but also anti-corporate idea's wont get pushed aside. as they can be funded too, by ethical businesses or the community that dont like corporations. in the end even the corporations will also help fund community projects as the plans (if at all helpful to bitcoin) will of course help corporations too.

after all good or bad, rich or poor we all agree that we want bitcoin to continue on its path to success.

so stop thinking voting and think bounty/crowdfunding. this will be the true motivation to get projects off the ground

A merit for me can be demerit for you. For example, some bitcoiners want more privacy, some want less. How to decide? By majority vote? But voting is a power struggle between two self-appointed groups, fighting for their vested interests, i.e. the thing you want to avoid.

So, I put $1 into development, risto puts $1,000,000, but both of us would have one vote each. To say it other way, I, with friends, will be controlling risto's money. Is it fair? Corporation controlling people's money is bad, but people controlling corporation's money is bad too. Kickstarter-type system with 1coin - 1vote looks much more fair for me.

You seem to have left out the part of the quote was where I said:
And I should append that it also shouldn't be judged by how much money they've thrown at the argument either.  I'm not saying there shouldn't be money involved.  Obviously it needs to be funded somehow.  But people with more money shouldn't have more influence over proposals and voting.  Otherwise you just end up with the equivalent of corporate lobbying where money dictates policy and the majority view counts for nothing.  It needs to be equal and proportionate.  Some form of majority blockchain-based voting system would be paramount, IMO.

The Bitcoin Association -- bitcoinassociation.org has committed to move to becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Corporation - totally decentralized.  Founders will have no special votes or abilities.

All interests are vested interest. If everybody who wants Bitcoin to go this or that direction is excluded from decision-making, who will make the decisions then? People that do not care?  

Any decision is result of struggle of vested interests, and there is no other way.
The choice is only in the form of this struggle: politics or money. I hate politics just as you do, so I would prefer the money way. Something like croudfunding.

What should buy it then? Talking on forums? Talk is cheap. If you really want something, you should be ready to pay for it. If you want a feature, pay for the feature.  Isn't it fair?

+1, People are taking this decentralization crap too far. I understand the bitcoin protocol itself is decentralized, but that's a whole different story, you can't compare a protocol to human beings(foundation is made up of human beings).  Not everyone(even people who use bitcoin) know much about bitcoin itself. Not everyone can make thoughtful and fair votes.

It's liked asking an artist if they think the stock price for apple will go up next quarter or not, you most likely won't get a thoughtful answer because they're artists, and know art, not stocks, even if the artist uses apple produts..(Similar to how many people use bitcoin but have no idea the tech behind it, or what it accomplishes etc)

You guys are taking the word, decentralization, out of context...stop comparing the bitcoin protocol to humans...

just went to the Satoshi Nakamoto's Institute. Very nice..

a discussion thread first to name some names of nominee's. then to speak to those nominee's about their desire to take part. and then have them nominee's that show such desire.. post their own 'bounty/crowdfund' address

stage 2 would be while nominee's set up the crowdfunding/bounty, we have a forum where each project/task is described in full and the discussion can be made about what information or agenda should be most relevent. basically if we all wanted andrea's to mention that no government red tape should take longer then 1 month, to allow innovation to occur. then this would be mentioned.

maybe even have mini poll votes on such relevant points to raise and which hold no material weight in reality.. either as mini polls or kind of like upticking discussion post if good, downticking of bad. then we can see what really needs to be said and the person doing such task can get a strategy, idea's and feedplanned before performing the duty..

same goes for development projects. up ticking if an idea's sounds good EG changing to 100sat measurements.. downticking bad idea's such as increasing the reward, decreasing blocktime which both would cause a change in the 21mill total... for example.

i invision a clone of reddit could achieve this.
with subsection for current projects (the crowdfunding) which links to the discussion subsection to plan what the goals, relevant content and tasks should be. where the most positive and best idea's are shown at the top of the list due to upticks (like a vote, but not)

Okay well I am on board with the crowdfunding/bounty idea. My next question is should there be a vote prior to crowd funding or just funding?

Meaning if antonopoulos wanted to go and speak to a goverment on behalf of all users would there be a vote first and if succesfull then crowd funding?

Why do we need a foundation? Isn't it about decentralization?

Yep, as somebody already said, I am happy for the likes of antonopoulos and Andresen to make endorsements and and reimagine the foundation on my behalf

yep. exactly.

no point asking alot of people to throw $10 into a pot each then maybe 4 times a year have a vote on 5 projects that are already biased where only one wins..

paying a dozen people to sit on their ass all year and have only 1 task per quarter asked of, maybe 1 of the 12 employee's, due to the fact that the vote winner is the only one with the expertise that the winning vote is about.

its cheaper and more fairer to everyone to 'pay for what you use' and not pay excessively for unused potential.

imagine it, 5 projects up for vote each project has a specialist assigned to it.

he wins...

star soccer and the foundations plan is all 5 vote specialists get a wage per year no matter what, the board also take a cut.. yet there is only 1 person going to a hearing, while the other 12 are sitting comfy taking money out of the pot.

bounties/crowdfunding, simply works and is more cost effective, shows true targets and due to no guaranteed income, makes the specialist more incentivized to work for the people, instead of trying to appease the board with their secret agenda, simply to keep his job.

This just sounds like crowdfunding.

again no members fee's just bounties, this will make EVERY bitcoin user a member just by owning bitcoin and they put funds into a bounty if they think the project is worthy.

as for the "problem"

lobbyists dont need to be politicians, government employee's. all they need is to show they are experts in their field and that they have something to contribute.

these government hearings do not get announcd 2 hours before they happen. they are publicly announced way before EG the guy from overstock attended a government hearing on bitcoin as he proved he had some insight in bitcoin related merchats.. also it does not costs $10k for someone to go to a hearing. ATMOST $2k to cover costs of a plane ticket, a hotel for 3 nights, a few taxi fares and meals.

so lets call that 5 bitcoins COSTS.
now look at projects such as seans outpost. dorian nakamoto fundraisers. those earned more then 5btc in a number of hours. so time and money for costs is not a problem..

as for the lobbyists labour. that can be compensated later. mainly as a thank you for an incredible effort at the hearing. after all most people get a salary at the end of the month, not the start. so why break the habit of paying labour before the work is done.

i know there are many smart people that would love to lobby / do PR for bitcoin if only their costs were met. and if they get a payment after for an excellent job then that to them is a bonus.

we should not be thinking of a system where a "nobody" demands average joe to pay subscriptions. and hoards the funds. to then pay out as salaries to dozens of people that sit on their hands all year and only go to one meeting, just to show they have contributed something.

think of it this way. if scientists got paid minimum wage to cover their bills, and were told they could get a big fat bonus for curing cancer...

and then take those same scientists and give them a large salary per year with no contract length, just guaranteed income.. which scenario do you think will end up as scientist turning up bright and early, work hard and find a cancer cure first???

There is no need for a Bitcoin Foundation, or anything it does.

Yes, this includes funding development of the Satoshi client.

That client is just one of several software projects that implements the Bitcoin protocol, and if any of the clients ceased to exist Bitcoin's existence would continue uninterrupted.

I'm not sure I would support the idea of a board.  Personally I'd like to see it go down a crowd-sourced, grassroots, blockchain voting kind of direction.  A new model of decentralised 'Direct Democracy' that, if successful, could eventually be used as a model to override the archaic notion of elected representatives in sovereign governance.  We've revolutionised money with decentralisation, so it should be equally possible to revolutionise politics in the same way.

Bounties for jobs would certainly be a method of achieving certain things, but we'd have to have alternatives for other other situations where that wouldn't be feasible due to time constraints.