These are the same people going around pretending to be the Bitcoin "core developers", which is in point of fact incorrect. As best as anyone can currently discern, Bitcoin does not have a core group of developers. If you absolutely must, the closest group to that function would be the folks over at Conformal, completely unrelated to our subjects this evening and moreover a stretch anyway.

Also, the "Bitcoin Foundation" appellation is quite improper, much in the manner of calling the annual championship series of US-based baseball teams "the World Series". This stands on both legs : on one hand the people collected under that pompous name have precious little to do with Bitcoin at all, on the other hand that thing they run is in no sense a foundation of any sort. Instead, a bunch of none too bright scammers and conmen operate a rather transparent confidence game, in which they collect[ed] donations from the easily swayed forum muppet gallery, and supplemented that revenue with whatever any scam in need of shilling was willing to pay for their services.

So let's go, in no particular order :

I. The "Bitcoin Foundation" / "Core Devs" group of scammers have quite publicly, and repeatedly, promoted and vouched for Butterfly Labs, aka BFL, definitely one of the most organised scams in Bitcoin, certainly one of the longest running, likely operated by the US arm of the 'Ndrangheta, all that good stuff. Other than various investigations by various police forces, the entire thing is going up in flames on the civil circuit too these days. The damage to the community they're responsible for on this count easily exceeds 100`000 BTC.

II. The "Bitcoin Foundation" / "Core Devs" group of scammers have quite publicly, and repeatedly, promoted and vouched for MtGox, the exchange operated by ex-convict and currently fugitive Karpeles. As perhaps you know, there's something to the tune of 700`000 BTC missing there.

III. The "Bitcoin Foundation" / "Core Devs" group of scammers have quite publicly, and repeatedly, asked for "donations". Other than propping the Vessenes ycombinated businesses floating a little longer on free cashflow (which is definitely not beneficial to Bitcoin in any sense) there is exactly zero to show for all this, because no, allowing anon scammers to buy status is not a good thing to do. The damage to the community here is difficult to estimate, there's a few million dollars missing in direct donations that were never accounted for, but in terms of reputation and adoption slowdown it's quite incalculable, how much they've hurt us. Best I can say is "probably somewhere between a lot and lot more than that".

IV. The "Bitcoin Foundation" / "Core Devs" group of scammers have quite deliberately harmed Bitcoin technically, on at least three main avenues :

Systematically attempted to block, slow and hinder protocol specification and development, in a manner quite reminescent of Microsoft's (and later NSA's) behaviour on industry standards groups. Deliberately and quite maliciously created a blockchain hardfork in March 2013, which allowed our enemies - whoever they may be - to effectually stress-test the entire project. Obviously this was going to happen sooner or later, with their help or without it. This however does not reduce their shame, nor should it reduce their due punishment. Your run of the mill druglord doesn't get off the hook in court by pleading "if I wasn't gonna do it someone else damn sure was!" Deliberately and quite maliciously tried to meld the BleedingHeart openssl vulnerability into the Bitcoin code. The move seemed bizarre at the time, seeing how there was exactly zero need and pretty much epsilon benefit of implementing such kludge, and given that everyone with a clue involved pretty much agreed PKI is broken beyond repair anyway. To properly understand the implications of this : NSA has had, for two years (ie, ever since their mole managed to plant the bug in openssl 1.0.1) the ability to read memory from both servers and clients. Before any handshake. Without leaving any log traces. All that was needed was a broken implementation of openssl, and in the case of Bitcoin such a thing could readily have exposed... all your private keys. All of them. So that the USG patrons of these disgusting pieces of slime could have had a backdoor to most if not exactly all Bitcoin in existence. How do you like that payout for trusting strangers on the web, dudes with no reputation and no accomplishments that claim they're "core devs" and "foundation blablabla" ?

Now these may all be things that don't interest you, or things you don't understand, or things you don't care about. That's fine.

But remember that someone can be rapist even if they didn't rape your own daughter/wife/mother. Someone can be a thief even if you didn't personally and with your very own two eyes see them steal. Raping and pillaging don't "just happen", raping is done, and pillaging is done. By people.

By people like Peter Vessenes, by people like Mike Hearn, by people like the entire group of scammers hiding under the pretense of "core developers" and the conceit of "Bitcoin Foundation".

All I want to say in closing is this : do not imagine that anyone involved is ever, for as long as they live, going to escape this tail. You're all marked men, and you will be remembered as such. You are the slime that tried - and failed - to fuck up Bitcoin. For personal profit, out of fear, because you had signed a pact with the bureaucratic devil in the past, whatever it may be. Why you did it and what you were aiming for instead... that you can save for the judge, if you get the luxury of such. What you did, that's on your head, and there it stays.

Permanently.

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