A LETTER TO ROGER VER - CEO BITCOIN.COM
Dear Roger,
I am a new investor with your company BItcoin.com and follow your thoughts and musings with great interest. I have great respect and admiration for you and what you have done. I watched Bitcoin from the sidelines for a long while before investing, and when I took the plunge, I liked the look of your company and staff.
Like everyone else in this techno world, I sat and observed the Hard Fork come and go on 1st August this year. I believed that the fork would solve the vast bulk of the problems that were evident between some factions of the Bitcoin - and by association, the entire Crypto community. Sadly - not the case.
I note your fervent passion on all things Bitcoin and your genuine interest in the betterment of the community. I have watched many of your videos and concur with your position.
However, I see the folly of a young man possibly making an unsound decision based, by and large, not on his firm beliefs and ideology, but made without the hindsight of a lifelong maturity. A maturity that would enable one to reflect and compromise in matters such as those you are now faced with. You have no access at this time to sage counsel from elders who have been around the block a few times and whom could assuage a weary or troubled mind. I note that your team of cohorts are highly capable, but they too are also imbued with the starry eyed exuberant view that only youth can provide. I guess it's the so called impudence of youth. It's a beautiful creative thing, but can also be a double edged sword.
Thus it is apparent to me that you may be making a rueful decision(s), due to a lack of access to an empirical view of your operations, and a considered approach to decision making. This is not a foible on your part, merely a side effect of being a CEO at such a tender age. I am much older than you, and I can see with the benefit of hindsight and considered wisdom, a man who may lock himself into decisions that may cause regret in later life. I have walked that path and it's no source of joy. I am here to beseech you, to reconsider some actions, and to suggest some adjuncts to assist in the maturing of the Crypto community. If nothing else, please listen to the thoughts that can only come from living a long time (well if 55 years is a long time!).
Bitcoin is as needed and refreshing as you imply. I too believe it is critical infrastructure to the future, but I fear grave consequences for Bitcoin unless some things in its life come to pass.
Bitcoin is in some ways, currently pulling itself apart due to having no underpinning administrative control whatsoever. Stability, control and crucially trust are watchwords of any financial empire. Programmers are going one way, Miners are running the other and there is disagreement within some in those offices.
I agree that fees should not be excessive, but see no problem in having a modest fee developing now. Poor people who are using Bitcoin to put bread on the table have little problem paying five bucks to move a couple of hundred dollars. Previously, these people were exploited by much greater percentages on both ends of a transaction. Everyone understands that there is no such thing as a free lunch in life. Even poor immigrants working in first world countries are starting to use Bitcoin to send money home to their families because it is effective, affordable and less corruptible and solidly trustworthy. These are important humane aspects of Bitcoin, they can mean the difference between food and no-food, or even medical care verses no medical care for a loved one.
So please don't make your decisions through an impetuous or capricious mind. Weigh carefully the impacts you make, and consider the unintended consequences of your actions and how they may affect, not only the people (like me) who engender your trust from an investor perspective, but also disenfranchised peoples with no voice, whose literal survival may depend on your actions. Please, start thinking like a Statesman.
Don't view Bitcoin as a plaything or a personal effect, subject to whim and ego. Consider the gravitas of your influence on the very stability of Bitcoin, in your role as a very young captain of industry. Be mindful that your steps impact in ways you did not foresee.
I see respected financial persons still failing to grasp the importance of Bitcoin and Blockchain. Anyone who still views Bitcoin as a 'bubble' has no fundamental grasp on finance or humanity. It is already important, valuable and immutable. You see that.
It deserves the protection and nurturing of the community that created it. Satoshi thought about many of the problems that Bitcoin would have to overcome, but perhaps could not protect it from mankind. That in many ways is the job of people like you and your ilk.
I would ask that you reconsider your position as stated in the PSA on the website. I would dearly love to see the PSA disappear from it's prominent position on the webpage to be hopefully replaced by a consideration on your part on both the effects it has on your investors, but more over the effect it has on the confidence with which Bitcoin is viewed by others. Removing the PSA would send a message to the Crypto community that you have the capacity to compromise and guide as a leader.
I respectfully suggest that the Bitcoin family of stakeholders, perhaps consider a moratorium on Forks and such matters, for two years, to allow a World Bitcoin Council, to be formed by programmers and miners, so that decisions on administrative aspects that affect all stakeholders and end users can be considered and issues robustly debated and assuaged. This would allow desired outcomes and solutions to be melded.
Bitcoin needs no central control by any nation, but does require a strong council of stakeholders, perhaps under a President to lay an administrative ongoing foundation of stability and trust and to nurture full confidence in Bitcoin proper.
On a planet of around 200 nations, the greatest gift of Bitcoin is that no matter how powerful or important any one of those nations sees itself, it can force no more than one 200th of an influence upon Bitcoin. That is it's cornerstone and greatest value and asset.
Roger. Thanks mate, for reading this letter. I hope this letter gives you food for thought and impresses upon you the need to seek advice, as and when necessary during your travails through life. I wish you only the very best.
Warmest Regards
Steve Lane
Onslow
Western Australia.
per:
steveonslow4377@gmail.com