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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

Has the Bitcoin Foundation Run Out of Cash? 71

Posted by timothy from the why-would-they-use-cash dept.
itwbennett writes The Bitcoin Foundation, an organization that promotes development of bitcoin, is 'effectively bankrupt' and has shed most of its staff, according to Olivier Janssens, a member of the foundation's board of directors. Janssens attributed the foundation's financial straits to two years of 'ridiculous spending and poorly thought out decisions,' adding that the board has tried to remedy the situation by finding a new executive director. Two other board members, however, said the foundation was not bankrupt, though in need of some kind of restructuring.
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Has the Bitcoin Foundation Run Out of Cash? More

Has the Bitcoin Foundation Run Out of Cash?

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  • What do you mean "run out of cash"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lumpio- ( 986581 ) on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @08:38AM (#49421933)
    Can't they just mine some more?

    • Of course they can (Score:5, Informative)

      by JcMorin ( 930466 ) on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @08:46AM (#49422017)
      Of course the foundation can mine more bitcoin, just like you do or anyone can. But it's pretty dam hard in terms of computing power needed. Nobody control Bitcoin and this foundation is nothing more than people with the name, they have no control over the money supply nor the rules that drive bitcoin.

      • Re:Of course they can (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TWX ( 665546 ) on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @09:04AM (#49422139)
        So they attempted to ride the coattails of Bitcoin and failed. Not exactly a surprise given that Bitcoin doesn't have a central authority on whose coattails to ride in the first place.

        • Re:Of course they can (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MasseKid ( 1294554 ) on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @09:57AM (#49422587)
          "two years of 'ridiculous spending" I'm not so sure they failed, depending on what they spent the money on. If they spent it on over paying their board or for boondoggle trips for their board, the people at the top could have come out very well, despite it being unsustainable. If someone wants to pay me 10 million dollars for example, and 2 yeas later I lose my job, I'd hardly call my employment in those two years a failure in regards to my personal fiances.
          • If their goal is to promote the use of bitcoins, then it's job done. Everyone knows about bitcoins - perhaps despite their efforts.
            • 'Everyone' does NOT know about bitcoins. Just had a discussion with several 'normal' 30-something friends a few weeks ago.... talking about how to pay for something online - credit cards, debit cards, pre-paid cards, gift cards, etc. Then I joked 'what about using bitcoins?' Every one of them asked 'What are bitcoins?' A few heard the term before, but most did not.

          • > a failure in regards to my personal fiances.
            that's what they said.

      • Nobody control Bitcoin

        I thought there was a big outcry recently that one mining pool managed to get above 50% of the total computational effort, and therefore was in a position to control bitcoin due to the intricacies of the system?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pla ( 258480 )
          The famous "51% attack" requires both malice *and* luck.

          First of all, just hitting 51% doesn't guarantee that you will continue to have a longer available chain than the rest of the network, a hard requirement to pull off a 51% double-spending attack. Until you start getting into the 60 or 70% range, you can at best cheat for a few blocks in a row.

          And since such double-spending becomes instantly detectable and would pretty much obliterate confidence in the network, you would effectively have the abilit

          • I wasn't talking about double spending attacks, I was more talking about a single mining entity having a greater power over setting the target and difficulty numbers because they essentially have a greater vote in setting it.

            • The target and difficulty aren't set by voting, they're set based on the time required to mine the last 2016 blocks—which should be about two weeks at the nominal target of 10 minutes per block. More than two weeks and the difficulty decreases; less than two weeks and it increases.

              The biggest problem with the concerns over a mining pool having over 50% of the hashing power is that the pool operators are only coordinating the effort; they don't actually own all that hardware, and the owners can decide

    • everybody's doing it...

    • Or just wait until tomorrow, when the value will go up 25%?

  • here's the benefit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @08:59AM (#49422097)
    "two years of 'ridiculous spending and poorly thought out decisions.'"
    So they're morons. Here's the difference with bitcoins. These people have no control over the system, your wallet, your loans, your car title, your mortgage, your country's exchange rate, etc. They can be as stupid as they want without really affecting bitcoins.

    • Re: here's the benefit (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Right, because when mt gox (and others) went down in flames, that didn't affect the overall bitcoin economy... ...except for all of those people who trusted them to keep the money safe and lost all of it.

      Make no mistake: Bitcoin inherited all the bad stuff from the "real world" economy - the con artists, the corruption, the scheming - without any of the oversight.

      You can do all the shit you want, and your liability end after you say "sorry". Not even the largest bank would get away with that.

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        >Not even the largest bank would get away with that.

        They get away with worse. When Mt. Gox steals your money, someone else has it and spends it. Nobody else has to chip in to deal with your stupidity for trusting scumbags.

        When a bank self-destructs, the government rushes to their aid, printing money to keep them afloat. A lot of it. Enough that the money of people smart enough to avoid trusting scumbags is no longer worth as much as it was before the scam.

        In other words, bitcoin lets the smart person

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by OhPlz ( 168413 )

          Considering that bitcoins were new and so were the companies involved with them, how would the average individual have determined which companies were trustworthy and which weren't?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DrXym ( 126579 )
          Which is of course why the exchange rate tanks every time one of these supposedly secure exchanges collapses or disappears with your money. It doesn't matter how fastidious with your own bitcoins, their effective purchase power is still fucked over by all the cons, scams and general incompetence. People lose confidence in the system and bailout.

    • No foundations no updates, no updates means no patches. Means no expansion as bitcoins run out.

      As it is you need to measure goods in the ten thousands of a coin. I can't wait to buy a pack a gum for .0000003 bit coins.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      They can only be as stupid as they want because BTC is of minimal importance and influence on people's lives.

    • They can be as stupid as they want without really affecting bitcoins.

      Bitcoin remains a very big question mark for many --- the faintest hint of fraud or failure surrounding it is damaging.

  • Inconceivable! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    A group organized to prop up a currency whose entire purpose was to be untrackable and uncontrollable turned out to be filled with fraudsters and the financially incompetent who thought they could make a quick buck from untrackable, uncontrollable currency?

    Inconceivable!

    • Re:Inconceivable! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @09:12AM (#49422185)

      "untrackable"

      This is false. Literally every transaction ever in the bitcoin network is available to the pubic via the blockchain.

    • Hey now, that's no way to talk about the FDIC!

  • Click in the links in my signature and get some Dogecoins and fractions of Bitcoin for yourselves.

    It doesn't help them, but it sure helps me!

  • Real time saver (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheCarp ( 96830 ) <sjc AT carpanet DOT net> on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @11:28AM (#49423351) Homepage

    I have to say, its nice to know Slashdot respects Betteridge's law, it would be a waste of time afterall to have to read past the headline to know that they have, in fact, not run out of money at all. If they hadn't clearly indicated that in the headline with the '?' which, in headlines answers the question with an implicit no; then I might wonder if it was true or not and have to read further.

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