36 ms·

The truth about the Bitcoin Foundation

276 points by notsony 12y ago

em3rgent0rdr 12y ago
Wow. Ironically, the bitcoin ecosystem always seems to have problems with centralized points of failure.
- xorcist 12y ago
  It also makes embezzlers out of federal agents, apparently. I sincerely hope that film writers have paid attention the past year, from MyWallet and onwards. It's all golden, beyond-belief territory with colourful characters involved.
  - yc1010 12y ago
    Thats what makes Bitcoin (following r/Bitcoin daily) so exciting, its like the Wild West of technology. There is a window of a few years to make serious money here IMHO (legally and unfortunately illegally) before various organisations who like their power (and havent yet woke up to the threat Bitcoin poses to them) crack down on Bitcoin, we already see Bitcoin being banned in more repressive regimes such as Russia, the US aint too far behind. I first got interested in 2012 buying a pile at 3-4$ per bitcoin to play around and satisfy my inner nerd. Then I forgot about it for a year or 2, it has been a wild ride since...
    - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      It's like the Wild West of Tech because it's easy money for scammers, thieves, liars, and frauds - all of whom love easy money. I don't think you can make a revolution work by handing it over to sociopaths and then wondering where all your value went. You probably need something more subtle. Still - BTC is interesting because altcurrency is the future, and mainstream banking is going down within 20-30 years. But it's going to be something more reliable than BTC that kills it. BTC is a premonition, not the real deal.
davidw 12y ago
I'm reminded of: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/583696870704152576 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/583696870704152576
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- kang 12y ago
  Patio11 goes on a tweet storm here where he is wrong so many times. >"..Most advantages of Bitcoin which matter are captured by, and improved upon by, a LAMP app which simply holds account balances." The blockchain is a ledger fine. But mining & proof of-work are separate concepts from the ledger. Mining is not only digging gold for distribution but also checking that the money note you just received is 'not counterfeit' + 'unique'. > "Bitcoin is not a protocol in any meaningful sense of word.." Bitcoin isn't but blockchain is. It is an algorithm that enables value transfer over any medium of transmission. Similar to how morse code enabled data transfer where only signal was being transferred. Similarly, internet enabled information transfer where only data was being transferred. Blockchain is the 8th layer of the OSI model. >"..Bitcoin's disaster recovery plan is a) get a cabal of people together in IRC, b) shut down the entire payment network, c) sort things." Forget bitcoin. Its like looking at the internet and finding faults in hotmail as the first email service. > "A good portion of geek enthusiasm for Bitcoins comes from the fact that it is programmable money. But: Money is also programmable money." No. Forget money. Blockchain is the thing. Its like saying internet is all about email. Internet enables information transfer, now what is information-transfer in plain english? A letter. Hence messaging is the first natural application of internet. Blockchain enables value-transfer, what is that in plain english? Money.
  - kang 12y ago
    Downvotes coz I call out patio11? explanation please?
    - vinceguidry 12y ago
      Not so much the calling out as the tone, which is unwarranted for pretty much any discussion on HN.
kang 12y ago
People might have not known that there is no money left, nevertheless no one trusted the foundation. The people in the crypto community here in India have always been criticising centralisation of power by forming a foundation. There are attempts to form rival groups like alliances etc but people know better. However, the media doesn't and thus to a neutral it might seem that these orgs hold a lot of importance in the community.
- smoyer 12y ago
  The media has and will continue to have a problem with bitcoin because, without a centralized organization there's no one for them to consider an authoritative source. With a centralized organization, bitcoin loses the "purity" of being truly distributed (from the users perspective).
jackgavigan 12y ago
Growing pains are to be expected with an emerging technology/eco-system like Bitcoin. It would be interesting to have sight of the Foundation's accounts, to see what they have been spending the money on.
- joshftw 12y ago
  Just checked. They have no published accounts as the Ltd is so young. In exactly 5 months they will have to publish accounts (in the UK at least under company number 08802555). No doubt they will have internal accounts which would be nice to see but they will be over by then. My credit reporting software gives them a 'moderate' risk of failure.
  - jackgavigan 12y ago
    The UK limited company is merely a subsidiary of the US entity, which is "a District of Columbia non-profit corporation", according to the byelaws: https://github.com/pmlaw/The-Bitcoin-Foundation-Legal-Repo/blob/master/Bylaws/Bylaws_of_The_Bitcoin_Foundation.md https://github.com/pmlaw/The-Bitcoin-Foundation-Legal-Repo/b... I doubt that much, if any, money passed through the UK limited company. Hence its company accounts are unlikely to be informative.
- vessenes 12y ago
  Biggest losses came from Bitcoin prices dropping. As to non-investment expenses, it was largely staffing. Bitcoin2014 was a money loser as well, if I recall.
bhouston 12y ago
I do not know exactly who this guy Olivier Janssens is, but he shouldn't be offering money out of his own pocket to fund this shit storm if it isn't his fault. Let the organization go bankrupt and create a new one.
- sanswork 12y ago
  Pretty sure all his wealth comes from Bitcoin so it's in his interest to spend money to support the growth of it.
  - oafitupa 12y ago
    What you said makes no sense whatsoever.
- pjzedalis 12y ago
  From the outside looking in his innocence and over reaching generosity made me skeptical. Especially considering he just signed on. Why does he bear the burden of righting the ship? It feels very coup like.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
anon4this1 12y ago
bla bla bla.. basically every centralised entity arising from bitcoin/the blockchain has crapped out/been a waste of money. pointless altcoins, asic mining cos, bitcoin stocks, all the rest. core, real, bitcoin itself remains a fantastic investment with massive upside, and will continue to be an incredibly useful in particular areas (darknet drugs etc) All the corruption on the peripheries is expected and irrelevant. long live bitcoin.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - wolfgke 12y ago
    > Apple mimicked Bitcoin with Apple Pay Where is Apple Pay's blockchain? ;-) Seriously, Apple created a payment service that is backed by traditional technology (credit cards). > and the hundreds of altcoins on the market only validates Bitcoin This rather shows that greed works: There are lots of people who would love to become rich by being early-time users of some altcoin.
- smoyer 12y ago
  But the Winkelvoss twins will succeed where all others have failed ... I'm not sure who they'll sue to make that happen though.
moe 12y ago
Curiously the btc-price went slightly up rather than down following this announcement. The community at large doesn't seem to care much.
- sanswork 12y ago
  I don't think the community at large has had any faith in the foundation for a long time so I don't think this is any surprise. I mean Oliver was largely voted in on his promise to destroy it from the inside.
  - josephagoss 12y ago
    This is mostly true, the foundation has been somewhat of a black spot within the community for a while now. Most people only really entertained the idea of the foundation as it was paying Gavin and another core developer a salary for their work, which is the only upside.
Ologn 12y ago
Bitcoin itself is a scam, so it's no surprise that all the key organizations around it are founds to be scams - the Bitcoin Foundation, Mt. Gox - even hardware manufacturers like Butterfly Labs. The scam actually ended in December 2013, when the original scammers unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars worth of their worthless hyped hashes for $1100 each. Everything has been gravy since then - they made over $100 million in the last year as well. The bitcoin is worth under $260, and headed to zero. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have been around long enough to know a fraud when they see one, and Munger correctly termed Bitcoins "rat poison". It's not a digital currency - it's a Ponzi scheme that will kill any chance of an actual digital currency from being developed in the subsequent years after its inevitable demise. I was saying so here when it was worth over $460. If the bagholders had listened instead of downvoted, they would have saved a lot of money. You still have time to get out before it plunges to zero. The idea these worthless hashes can retain a $3 billion market cap is risible. I know why a commodity like gold has value, or why oil has value. Gold has been used as a currency, or to back currencies for thousands of years. Gold backed the US dollar until 1971. In fact, the 10,000 tons of gold the US still holds in Fort Knox and elsewhere still backs the dollar, albeit indirectly (for what other reason are they paying the expenses to store it?) Why does Bitcoin have value? It doesn't, nor did Pets.com, subprime real estate, Dutch tulip bulbs, or other bubbles supported by hype. HN has new rules against gratuituous negativity. I warned some people here from this scam over a year ago when it was over $460 (now <$260). I don't know if people can be warned off hype here in the future, but if so, you can always listen to old hands who have seen it all before like Munger and Buffett, who see this "rat poison" for what it is - valueless hashes, destined to be priced at their true worth - $0. Of course, as Keynes said, markets can remain irrational longer than I can remain solvent.
- njloof 12y ago
  Why does a commodity like gold have the value it does? Its price outshines its industrial uses. The remaining values are that it doesn't corrode and it's shiny.
  - Ologn 12y ago
    I don't believe that the price of gold outpaces its value over the long run. Of course prices can swing in the shorter term. Silver was worth $10 an ounce in 1979 and $10 an ounce in 1981, but for a few days in 1980 it went over $40 for various reasons. The price of gold and silver shot up after the 2008 sub-prime crisis, but have come down from their highs. There are still some economic fears, like with the EU, with Greece and Spain, so the prices are still somewhat high. The reason gold's price doesn't outstrip its value over the long term is because it is just a commodity, despite being durable as you say (and divisible, and uniform, and portable). If its price outstripped its value for too long, people would move to better priced commodities like the other precious metals, or oil, or other commodities.
datashovel 12y ago
The ideal cryptocurrency in my mind has (1) a core specification that never changes (2) no reliance on a centralized "foundation" (3) no blockchain. I know #3 is somewhat ironic, but given the unwieldy nature of the blockchain (especially when you scale it out to global use) I don't see a long-term sustainable future. With a blockchain comes 3rd party bitcoin "banks" which IMO is just the same financial structure as we have now, just different people running it.
- wyager 12y ago
  When you find a technological solution with those properties, let us know.
- josephagoss 12y ago
  Good points. Regarding (1), I think Bitcoin is heading very quickly towards that reality. Satoshi made a comment that most of Bitcoins rules will never change after he released the first version of the software. There are only a few decisions left, such as block size and side chains. Side chains will be interesting, as the specification of Bitcoin becomes fixed and never changing, new additions could be added onto Bitcoin outside of the core specification via these side chains. Will this work? Who knows. Point (2), Bitcoin hasn't really had to rely on the foundation except for the salaries of two core developers. As I understand it most of the Bitcoin core development team are not supported by the foundation. (3) Instead of no blockchain, I wonder if there is a way to make a more distributed blockchain? Imagine that a single copy of the blockchain could exist on perhaps 1000 nodes instead of just 1? Just a thought? I think the essence of the blockchain, this immortal database that proves the integrity of each Bitcoin, I really think we need to keep this in some way.
  - datashovel 12y ago
    A distributed blockchain could have promise. Regardless I know the blockchain will bring (already has brought) many amazing things to the world. It truly is a great innovation. With that said I'm still not 100% convinced a distributed blockchain is essential to have legitimate cryptocurrency. I know the problem has been worked on for a long time by a lot of really smart people, and this really is the best implementation to date. I guess for me the path is clear. Whoever comes up with the simplest, least-technical implementation will win the race for adoption. No matter what though, I'm confident cryptocurrency is the future of currency.
jokoon 12y ago
One of the funniest thing about bitcoin is how its creator just hides in the shadow, like he knows bitcoin is not really something he advocates, but just a technology. What's interesting about bitcoin is its blockchain algorithm, nothing else.
- kordless 12y ago
  The only thing funny here is your blaming comment. What the founders do now is of little relevance. What we all do now is what matters.
  - jokoon 12y ago
    What am I blaming ? What matters ?
    - kordless 12y ago
      > What am I blaming? You know exactly WHO you are blaming, and that it was a WHO question to ask, not a WHAT. To be crystal clear, you are stating the 'creator' of Bitcoin is 'hiding' and that, because of the fact he is 'hiding', he doesn't advocate it. Frankly, that's saying a lot (i.e. a blaming statement) about somebody you don't (and can't) know. It's also technically an ad hominem argument, which is a trust hacking mechanism. Which you know already. <--- That's a blaming statement, BTW. > What matters? Not asking leading questions, for one thing.
- josephagoss 12y ago
  I think it was a good thing that Satoshi left. Satoshi was simply a single point of failure, some obvious element of the system that could be attacked, especially knowing how many Bitcoin this person amassed. When Satoshi left, Bitcoin became that little bit more decentralised, as others had to take on the lead development role and the community had to allow others to take the lead. All the decisions about Bitcoin's future with regard to technical issues is now heavily debated, if Satoshi were still here there might not be a debate, just a decision. Most of us in the community agree that Satoshi's departure was for the good of Bitcoin.
Frondo 12y ago
Whether Bitcoin was designed as a scam, I'm not too interested. Whether Bitcoin today operates as a scam, I'm not too interested. The fraudulent nature and qualities often discussed don't interested me too much. There is a deeper issue I've raised, that I've never seen satisfactorily addressed, with Bitcoin: It has economic assumptions baked into it (deflationary, fixed size of money pool, etc). These assumptions, like all economic assumptions built into a currency, will guide and govern people's behavior and use of it. That means that bitcoin is a human-invented system that, if it came into any widespread adoption, would play a role in suggesting or controlling people's behavior, just like any currency. The difference is, the people whose behavior would be controlled have no say in changing those economic assumptions. The people who could potentially live in a bitcoin-infused world have no voice in how it operates. Bitcoin, in effect, takes a degree of agency from the people, and this is especially problematic if it became widespread enough that you'd be compelled to use it. Why does that matter? Because people have a right to democratic institutions. People have a right to vote on or have a say in matters that govern their lives. Bitcoin, as it exists now, takes that away from people. And, to bring up a couple of things people have said to be me here before, the fact that Bitcoin can be changed (i.e. by writing new code and persuading 100% of the community to adopt it) does not make it democratic. Setting the barrier to democratic participation at "learn to code, or pay someone to code, and then change everyone over all at once to your new software" means that that isn't really a democratic system at all. And to bring up the point that currency shouldn't be democratically decided, well, no. People have a right to govern their affairs and live in a society responsive to their needs. Moving in the direction of taking some of that agency away is moving in the wrong direction. I'm not opposed to digital currency in general, but I am opposed to one that operates in a way that I have no democratic recourse if I don't like how it runs.
- vijayboyapati 12y ago
  It should be pointed out that US operated as a democratic republic for over a century on the gold standard - which bitcoins shares a lot of properties with, except that bitcoin can be transmitted at distance easily, whereas gold cannot.
  - 12y ago
oldpond 12y ago
Let it die. Bitcoin was a huge mistake. Speculating on virtual currency is no different than speculating on "real" currency. It was subject to the same corruption that it was designed to avoid. I'm not surprised, and I hope this will trigger some clearer thinking on the future of financial systems.
- oafitupa 12y ago
  http://bitcoinobituaries.com/ http://bitcoinobituaries.com/

276 points by notsony 12y ago

em3rgent0rdr 12y ago

Wow. Ironically, the bitcoin ecosystem always seems to have problems with centralized points of failure.

xorcist 12y ago
It also makes embezzlers out of federal agents, apparently. I sincerely hope that film writers have paid attention the past year, from MyWallet and onwards. It's all golden, beyond-belief territory with colourful characters involved.
- yc1010 12y ago
  Thats what makes Bitcoin (following r/Bitcoin daily) so exciting, its like the Wild West of technology. There is a window of a few years to make serious money here IMHO (legally and unfortunately illegally) before various organisations who like their power (and havent yet woke up to the threat Bitcoin poses to them) crack down on Bitcoin, we already see Bitcoin being banned in more repressive regimes such as Russia, the US aint too far behind. I first got interested in 2012 buying a pile at 3-4$ per bitcoin to play around and satisfy my inner nerd. Then I forgot about it for a year or 2, it has been a wild ride since...
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    It's like the Wild West of Tech because it's easy money for scammers, thieves, liars, and frauds - all of whom love easy money. I don't think you can make a revolution work by handing it over to sociopaths and then wondering where all your value went. You probably need something more subtle. Still - BTC is interesting because altcurrency is the future, and mainstream banking is going down within 20-30 years. But it's going to be something more reliable than BTC that kills it. BTC is a premonition, not the real deal.

davidw 12y ago

I'm reminded of: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/583696870704152576 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/583696870704152576

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kang 12y ago
Patio11 goes on a tweet storm here where he is wrong so many times. >"..Most advantages of Bitcoin which matter are captured by, and improved upon by, a LAMP app which simply holds account balances." The blockchain is a ledger fine. But mining & proof of-work are separate concepts from the ledger. Mining is not only digging gold for distribution but also checking that the money note you just received is 'not counterfeit' + 'unique'. > "Bitcoin is not a protocol in any meaningful sense of word.." Bitcoin isn't but blockchain is. It is an algorithm that enables value transfer over any medium of transmission. Similar to how morse code enabled data transfer where only signal was being transferred. Similarly, internet enabled information transfer where only data was being transferred. Blockchain is the 8th layer of the OSI model. >"..Bitcoin's disaster recovery plan is a) get a cabal of people together in IRC, b) shut down the entire payment network, c) sort things." Forget bitcoin. Its like looking at the internet and finding faults in hotmail as the first email service. > "A good portion of geek enthusiasm for Bitcoins comes from the fact that it is programmable money. But: Money is also programmable money." No. Forget money. Blockchain is the thing. Its like saying internet is all about email. Internet enables information transfer, now what is information-transfer in plain english? A letter. Hence messaging is the first natural application of internet. Blockchain enables value-transfer, what is that in plain english? Money.
- kang 12y ago
  Downvotes coz I call out patio11? explanation please?
  - vinceguidry 12y ago
    Not so much the calling out as the tone, which is unwarranted for pretty much any discussion on HN.

kang 12y ago

People might have not known that there is no money left, nevertheless no one trusted the foundation. The people in the crypto community here in India have always been criticising centralisation of power by forming a foundation. There are attempts to form rival groups like alliances etc but people know better. However, the media doesn't and thus to a neutral it might seem that these orgs hold a lot of importance in the community.

smoyer 12y ago
The media has and will continue to have a problem with bitcoin because, without a centralized organization there's no one for them to consider an authoritative source. With a centralized organization, bitcoin loses the "purity" of being truly distributed (from the users perspective).

jackgavigan 12y ago

Growing pains are to be expected with an emerging technology/eco-system like Bitcoin. It would be interesting to have sight of the Foundation's accounts, to see what they have been spending the money on.

joshftw 12y ago
Just checked. They have no published accounts as the Ltd is so young. In exactly 5 months they will have to publish accounts (in the UK at least under company number 08802555). No doubt they will have internal accounts which would be nice to see but they will be over by then. My credit reporting software gives them a 'moderate' risk of failure.
- jackgavigan 12y ago
  The UK limited company is merely a subsidiary of the US entity, which is "a District of Columbia non-profit corporation", according to the byelaws: https://github.com/pmlaw/The-Bitcoin-Foundation-Legal-Repo/blob/master/Bylaws/Bylaws_of_The_Bitcoin_Foundation.md https://github.com/pmlaw/The-Bitcoin-Foundation-Legal-Repo/b... I doubt that much, if any, money passed through the UK limited company. Hence its company accounts are unlikely to be informative.
vessenes 12y ago
Biggest losses came from Bitcoin prices dropping. As to non-investment expenses, it was largely staffing. Bitcoin2014 was a money loser as well, if I recall.

bhouston 12y ago

I do not know exactly who this guy Olivier Janssens is, but he shouldn't be offering money out of his own pocket to fund this shit storm if it isn't his fault. Let the organization go bankrupt and create a new one.

sanswork 12y ago
Pretty sure all his wealth comes from Bitcoin so it's in his interest to spend money to support the growth of it.
- oafitupa 12y ago
  What you said makes no sense whatsoever.
pjzedalis 12y ago
From the outside looking in his innocence and over reaching generosity made me skeptical. Especially considering he just signed on. Why does he bear the burden of righting the ship? It feels very coup like.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

anon4this1 12y ago

bla bla bla.. basically every centralised entity arising from bitcoin/the blockchain has crapped out/been a waste of money. pointless altcoins, asic mining cos, bitcoin stocks, all the rest. core, real, bitcoin itself remains a fantastic investment with massive upside, and will continue to be an incredibly useful in particular areas (darknet drugs etc) All the corruption on the peripheries is expected and irrelevant. long live bitcoin.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- wolfgke 12y ago
  > Apple mimicked Bitcoin with Apple Pay Where is Apple Pay's blockchain? ;-) Seriously, Apple created a payment service that is backed by traditional technology (credit cards). > and the hundreds of altcoins on the market only validates Bitcoin This rather shows that greed works: There are lots of people who would love to become rich by being early-time users of some altcoin.
smoyer 12y ago
But the Winkelvoss twins will succeed where all others have failed ... I'm not sure who they'll sue to make that happen though.

moe 12y ago

Curiously the btc-price went slightly up rather than down following this announcement. The community at large doesn't seem to care much.

sanswork 12y ago
I don't think the community at large has had any faith in the foundation for a long time so I don't think this is any surprise. I mean Oliver was largely voted in on his promise to destroy it from the inside.
- josephagoss 12y ago
  This is mostly true, the foundation has been somewhat of a black spot within the community for a while now. Most people only really entertained the idea of the foundation as it was paying Gavin and another core developer a salary for their work, which is the only upside.

Ologn 12y ago

Bitcoin itself is a scam, so it's no surprise that all the key organizations around it are founds to be scams - the Bitcoin Foundation, Mt. Gox - even hardware manufacturers like Butterfly Labs. The scam actually ended in December 2013, when the original scammers unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars worth of their worthless hyped hashes for $1100 each. Everything has been gravy since then - they made over $100 million in the last year as well. The bitcoin is worth under $260, and headed to zero. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have been around long enough to know a fraud when they see one, and Munger correctly termed Bitcoins "rat poison". It's not a digital currency - it's a Ponzi scheme that will kill any chance of an actual digital currency from being developed in the subsequent years after its inevitable demise. I was saying so here when it was worth over $460. If the bagholders had listened instead of downvoted, they would have saved a lot of money. You still have time to get out before it plunges to zero. The idea these worthless hashes can retain a $3 billion market cap is risible. I know why a commodity like gold has value, or why oil has value. Gold has been used as a currency, or to back currencies for thousands of years. Gold backed the US dollar until 1971. In fact, the 10,000 tons of gold the US still holds in Fort Knox and elsewhere still backs the dollar, albeit indirectly (for what other reason are they paying the expenses to store it?) Why does Bitcoin have value? It doesn't, nor did Pets.com, subprime real estate, Dutch tulip bulbs, or other bubbles supported by hype. HN has new rules against gratuituous negativity. I warned some people here from this scam over a year ago when it was over $460 (now <$260). I don't know if people can be warned off hype here in the future, but if so, you can always listen to old hands who have seen it all before like Munger and Buffett, who see this "rat poison" for what it is - valueless hashes, destined to be priced at their true worth - $0. Of course, as Keynes said, markets can remain irrational longer than I can remain solvent.

njloof 12y ago
Why does a commodity like gold have the value it does? Its price outshines its industrial uses. The remaining values are that it doesn't corrode and it's shiny.
- Ologn 12y ago
  I don't believe that the price of gold outpaces its value over the long run. Of course prices can swing in the shorter term. Silver was worth $10 an ounce in 1979 and $10 an ounce in 1981, but for a few days in 1980 it went over $40 for various reasons. The price of gold and silver shot up after the 2008 sub-prime crisis, but have come down from their highs. There are still some economic fears, like with the EU, with Greece and Spain, so the prices are still somewhat high. The reason gold's price doesn't outstrip its value over the long term is because it is just a commodity, despite being durable as you say (and divisible, and uniform, and portable). If its price outstripped its value for too long, people would move to better priced commodities like the other precious metals, or oil, or other commodities.

datashovel 12y ago

The ideal cryptocurrency in my mind has (1) a core specification that never changes (2) no reliance on a centralized "foundation" (3) no blockchain. I know #3 is somewhat ironic, but given the unwieldy nature of the blockchain (especially when you scale it out to global use) I don't see a long-term sustainable future. With a blockchain comes 3rd party bitcoin "banks" which IMO is just the same financial structure as we have now, just different people running it.

wyager 12y ago
When you find a technological solution with those properties, let us know.
josephagoss 12y ago
Good points. Regarding (1), I think Bitcoin is heading very quickly towards that reality. Satoshi made a comment that most of Bitcoins rules will never change after he released the first version of the software. There are only a few decisions left, such as block size and side chains. Side chains will be interesting, as the specification of Bitcoin becomes fixed and never changing, new additions could be added onto Bitcoin outside of the core specification via these side chains. Will this work? Who knows. Point (2), Bitcoin hasn't really had to rely on the foundation except for the salaries of two core developers. As I understand it most of the Bitcoin core development team are not supported by the foundation. (3) Instead of no blockchain, I wonder if there is a way to make a more distributed blockchain? Imagine that a single copy of the blockchain could exist on perhaps 1000 nodes instead of just 1? Just a thought? I think the essence of the blockchain, this immortal database that proves the integrity of each Bitcoin, I really think we need to keep this in some way.
- datashovel 12y ago
  A distributed blockchain could have promise. Regardless I know the blockchain will bring (already has brought) many amazing things to the world. It truly is a great innovation. With that said I'm still not 100% convinced a distributed blockchain is essential to have legitimate cryptocurrency. I know the problem has been worked on for a long time by a lot of really smart people, and this really is the best implementation to date. I guess for me the path is clear. Whoever comes up with the simplest, least-technical implementation will win the race for adoption. No matter what though, I'm confident cryptocurrency is the future of currency.

jokoon 12y ago

One of the funniest thing about bitcoin is how its creator just hides in the shadow, like he knows bitcoin is not really something he advocates, but just a technology. What's interesting about bitcoin is its blockchain algorithm, nothing else.

kordless 12y ago
The only thing funny here is your blaming comment. What the founders do now is of little relevance. What we all do now is what matters.
- jokoon 12y ago
  What am I blaming ? What matters ?
  - kordless 12y ago
    > What am I blaming? You know exactly WHO you are blaming, and that it was a WHO question to ask, not a WHAT. To be crystal clear, you are stating the 'creator' of Bitcoin is 'hiding' and that, because of the fact he is 'hiding', he doesn't advocate it. Frankly, that's saying a lot (i.e. a blaming statement) about somebody you don't (and can't) know. It's also technically an ad hominem argument, which is a trust hacking mechanism. Which you know already. <--- That's a blaming statement, BTW. > What matters? Not asking leading questions, for one thing.
josephagoss 12y ago
I think it was a good thing that Satoshi left. Satoshi was simply a single point of failure, some obvious element of the system that could be attacked, especially knowing how many Bitcoin this person amassed. When Satoshi left, Bitcoin became that little bit more decentralised, as others had to take on the lead development role and the community had to allow others to take the lead. All the decisions about Bitcoin's future with regard to technical issues is now heavily debated, if Satoshi were still here there might not be a debate, just a decision. Most of us in the community agree that Satoshi's departure was for the good of Bitcoin.

Frondo 12y ago

Whether Bitcoin was designed as a scam, I'm not too interested. Whether Bitcoin today operates as a scam, I'm not too interested. The fraudulent nature and qualities often discussed don't interested me too much. There is a deeper issue I've raised, that I've never seen satisfactorily addressed, with Bitcoin: It has economic assumptions baked into it (deflationary, fixed size of money pool, etc). These assumptions, like all economic assumptions built into a currency, will guide and govern people's behavior and use of it. That means that bitcoin is a human-invented system that, if it came into any widespread adoption, would play a role in suggesting or controlling people's behavior, just like any currency. The difference is, the people whose behavior would be controlled have no say in changing those economic assumptions. The people who could potentially live in a bitcoin-infused world have no voice in how it operates. Bitcoin, in effect, takes a degree of agency from the people, and this is especially problematic if it became widespread enough that you'd be compelled to use it. Why does that matter? Because people have a right to democratic institutions. People have a right to vote on or have a say in matters that govern their lives. Bitcoin, as it exists now, takes that away from people. And, to bring up a couple of things people have said to be me here before, the fact that Bitcoin can be changed (i.e. by writing new code and persuading 100% of the community to adopt it) does not make it democratic. Setting the barrier to democratic participation at "learn to code, or pay someone to code, and then change everyone over all at once to your new software" means that that isn't really a democratic system at all. And to bring up the point that currency shouldn't be democratically decided, well, no. People have a right to govern their affairs and live in a society responsive to their needs. Moving in the direction of taking some of that agency away is moving in the wrong direction. I'm not opposed to digital currency in general, but I am opposed to one that operates in a way that I have no democratic recourse if I don't like how it runs.

vijayboyapati 12y ago
It should be pointed out that US operated as a democratic republic for over a century on the gold standard - which bitcoins shares a lot of properties with, except that bitcoin can be transmitted at distance easily, whereas gold cannot.
- 12y ago

oldpond 12y ago

Let it die. Bitcoin was a huge mistake. Speculating on virtual currency is no different than speculating on "real" currency. It was subject to the same corruption that it was designed to avoid. I'm not surprised, and I hope this will trigger some clearer thinking on the future of financial systems.

oafitupa 12y ago
http://bitcoinobituaries.com/ http://bitcoinobituaries.com/