Hacker News Reader

Comment by oska | Hacker News Reader

A little bit of background about this site (bitcoin.com). This site is owned by a very controversial figure in the bitcoin world (Roger Ver). Many people feel his use of the domain is unethical, as the URL looks like an official voice for bitcoin when it is far from it.

Satoshi Nakamoto (bitcoin's creator) registered the bitcoin.org site to present information on bitcoin, with the .org domain reflecting the open source, community engaged spirit of early bitcoin development. Roger Ver purchased bitcoin.com from a domain squatter and uses the site to frequently attack core developers of bitcoin and to hype altcoins. From the submission title this article doesn't appear to fall in either of those categories but I think it is still worth pointing out the dubious background of this site to anyone just becoming interested in bitcoin.

View on HN

Roger Ver isn't an angel, but the core developers are far from deserving uncritical respect. They've failed for 3+ years to implement any of the dozens of proposed scaling improvements.

This is a very political comment. The Core developers are free to do what they want. The software is open source and running it is the choice of the users. The Core developers are not compelled by any means to do any implementation even if the majority of users, exchanges and investors want it.

The parent comment implied that saying anything negative about core developers is a terrible thing, which is a view that many people don't share. My comment was intended to provide some insight into that aspect.

The problem is with deployment, not with development. The code is there.

Well, they haven't released any versions of the bitcoin client that support scaling, either. I do believe the core developers are in charge of releasing new versions of the reference client.

Satoshi Nakamoto also intended for the block sizes to go up after an amount of time, yet the bitcoin core team isn't willing to upgrade and tries to promote their own agenda (blockstream).

I think using a domain name you paid dearly for, to promote a project you've got millions invested in, and many ancillary businesses in the space you also have millions invested in is entirely ethical. Do you think searchengine.com is unethical because google exists? I'm pretty sure Ver is a bitcoin maximalist as well.

Yeah, I don't think you've supported the "dubious" claim. Also his attempt to create lower fees through software "upgrades" may be flawed, but the intent seems honest to me.

The "core developers" not only deserves to be attacked but should face fraud, DDoS and CFAA indictments for criminally handcappig and limiting bitcoin while pushing for SegWit, a proposal that discounts smart contracts they write (Lightning, Sidechains) by 75% while engaging in astrosurfing, censorship, DDoS attacks against those who actually want bitcoin to prevail instead of becoming Blockstream's pet project.

Blockstream, armed with venture funding tried (and is still trying) to "embrace, extend, extinguish" bitcoin to their own "open in name only" system. Just look at their attacks (including DDoS attacks against nodes, and reckless security disclosure motivated by sabotage) against Bitcoin XT, Classic, and Unlimited.

I can't wait until the day they go to jail.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com