My membership with the Bitcoin Foundation expired today. When I joined, last year, it was just after Jon Matonis took the reigns, and many of us were curious to see the direction the Bitcoin Foundation would take.
In August, elections for new seats on the board of directors were announced. Let’s Talk Bitcoin did a great job of hosting debates for the Individual Seat elections. One of the issues for debate was the role of the Bitcoin Foundation–would it truly promote the use of Bitcoin or would it be a Washington lobbyist? There were several international members running for the new seats.
Since the elections, there have only been a handful of members active in the forums.
Since January, the Foundation lost board members Charlie Shrem and Mark Karpeles, and gained Brock Pierce. These events seem to have led a handful of members to resign their memberships. In my case, I simply chose not to renew it.
Bitcoin has changed a lot in the last year. Silk Road is gone. MtGox is gone. Companies like Butterfly Labs and HashFast are facing lawsuits and/or bankruptcy. Cloud mining companies and ASICs have ruined mining opportunities for those without deep pockets.
If Bitcoin is to be a democratic system or one of consensus, it needs a more even distribution of hashing power. Satoshi’s vision was one CPU = one vote.
In the last six months, Bitcoin has ceased to be a system governed by consensus, due to the fact that the majority of hashing power belongs to the rich. Dare I say the 1%? In the US, Bitcoin has succumbed to the establishment. Actually, the Bitcoin Foundation is a good example of this, just in how they have organized themselves as a centralized organization, in the same old-paradigm fashion as the banks and governments.
Crypto-currencies are the way of the future; the evolution of money. Crypto-currencies are to banks what Email was to post offices.
I’ve been invited to join the NXT community, but it also smacks of the old paradigm.
My question is why are we using these new technologies to prop-up our failing institutions? Centralization and top-down hierarchical governments are a product of the Industrial Age. We should be finding decentralized forms of governance. We have the technology.
Bitcoin enables people to bank without banks. Instead, it is promoted as a payment system to interface with banks. If you think this is what Bitcoin is all about then you have missed the point.
I’m still reeling from GBBG|BitBilions CEO David Ruebush’s announcement of his top-secret project. He wants his “GBBG Bank” to put traditional banks to shame when it comes to AML and KYC regulations, stating that his customers would need several forms of identification to use his service. So, it seems that his vision of Bitcoin is really “Govcoin”.
GBBG|BitBillions is also a member of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Draw your own conclusions.
