Peter Todd Distances Himself From Bitcoin Foundation Politics

A new email has been sent out by the Bitcoin Foundation, which has caused a lot of confusion and disgruntlement among Bitcoin experts. Peter Todd responded on Twitter stressing how he’s not a Bitcoin Foundation member and doesn’t wish to be represented by them.

Also read: WhatsApp Payment Service Holds Implications for Bitcoin Adoption

What is the Bitcoin Foundation up to Now?

The email in question was sent out to the Bitcoin Core development team, as they wanted to weigh in with some of their ideas regarding the development of this cryptocurrency. Anyone and everyone is welcome to submit their ideas and proposals to the Core developers, although that doesn’t mean these ideas will make it to a future client release.

What makes this particular email interesting is how the Bitcoin Foundation wants to be recognized by the Core developers as the asset they can be. Additionally, they also mentioned how the Foundation has “fixed much of what needed fixing, and would welcome the help of Core devs to help make this the most effective benefit to Bitcoin it can be.”

So far, that is nothing out of the ordinary, although people may argue how the Foundation has not been doing the best of jobs in the past either. After all, the Bitcoin Foundation went nearly bankrupt in 2015, and the Bitcoin Core developers looked for alternatives to keep working on the client without any political agendas trying to steer them in a particular direction.

Unfortunately, it appears as if these political agendas are rearing their ugly heads once again. The Bitcoin Foundation email made a mention of appointing a new Committee Chair and Officer Role, and they want to select a qualified developer as CTO. However, none of the Bitcoin Core devs seems to be doing this job for the glory or fancy titles, and there seems to be little point in appointing them in such a  formal manner. So far, it appears both Eric Lombrozo and Gregory Maxwell are considered for this position by the Foundation.

Further in the email, the Foundation touches upon the Bitcoin block size debate:

There is is a large amount of code development based on handwaving. In Nick [Szabo]’s opinion the blocksize debate showed that even some of the developers don’t really know how secure Bitcoin is they are at the very least very reluctant to talk about the topic, which leaves everybody else in the dark (and not knowing whether some of the developers themselves are in that dark  having talked with them about these topics Nick is afraid that many of them are). That is the biggest reason there is so much heat and so little light in the blocksize and related debates about performance vs. security. 

Szabo suggests looking for a computer scientist familiar with anonymous Byzantine consensus to write a paper on proofs of security in abstract models based on Bitcoin and Ethereum. Additionally, this expert would touch upon limitations when applying these proofs to both Bitcoin and Ethereum, and optionally recommend the direction for designing the next generation of blockchain technology.

Bitcoin Foundation Going Back to Education

While the Bitcoin Foundation goes on mentioning their focus on adding more developers and educating individuals and organizations on Bitcoin and blockchain, the political tone has been set already. The Foundation seems more than willing to be the political center of Bitcoin and its future development, which is not something everyone can appreciate.

In fact, Peter Todd and Olivier Janssens have already voiced their opinions on social media:

Moreover, Peter Todd followed up his statement by saying how “disbanding the Bitcoin foundation and starting fresh under a different name without connotations of authority would be a good idea.” Bitcoin was never designed to have a leader or an overarching body, yet the Foundation strongly feels they should be the official representatives of this cryptocurrency.

What are your thoughts on this Bitcoin Foundation email? What are they trying to achieve in your opinion? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: 0Bin

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Bitcoin Foundation

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