Foundations

Yesterday, I read one of the saddest articles I've read in a while on Coindesk. The Bitcoin Foundation has once again proven to be malfunctioning, with two members leaving, claiming to be forcibly removed.

I find this sad, not in the first place because it happened, but because it happened in a community that is based on the principles on decentralisation, honesty, transparency and new forms of collaboration. To see a Foundation that should be some kind of example for this to go about their business in such a sloppy, wasteful and above all shady way is just a disgrace.

Promises have been made time and again to change their ways, and all have failed. I am usually not resentful, but considering the context in which the Foundation came to exist and how they chose to behave, I feel justified in being disappointed at the very least.

Decentralised leadership

The issue of leadership in decentralised communities is one that seems difficult to grasp, even to people who work in them. To me, having come from a theatre background, this is sometimes baffling.

The way in which cooperative theatre groups have been run for years shows that the templates are already there, and well documented to boot. Also, coming from Amsterdam, where the squatter culture is both respectable and old, I cannot see why it is even such an issue.

My only conclusion can be is that the people trying to set up these structures just didn't do their homework, or refused to look outside "traditional" models. This is even more baffling considering the fact that the Bitcoin community itself contains many people who are well educated on such topics.

People like Rick Falkvinge have in the recent past shown that it is very possible to be a leader in a decentralised community, so the fact that the Bitcoin Foundation apparently chooses to ignore such models is just ridiculous.

NXT Foundation alternative

I am a founding member of the NXT Foundation and we have been wary of any kind of officialdom from the start. We took our cue from the Linux Foundation that hasn't tried to become a "leader" in the traditional sense, but rather a facilitator for the community that they grew out of.

The NXT Foundation has since its inception made clear that we do not and cannot consider ourselves to be the representatives of the NXT Community, developers or organisation. We are our own organisation, one limb of a much larger movement and we can only play the part we want to play: to facilitate the business adoption of NXT. This means we cannot speak as NXT, we cannot make commitments for NXT, but we cán make ourselves heard in a democratic way. The more succesful we are, the more value we provide to the community, the more influence we will get. Or not, if the community majority decides to move in another direction.

The real fact that we might fail because the community just doesn't agree with us is at the basis of what we do. If there is no internal support for our vision, or if we fail to create this support, then we cannot do our work. We either adapt, or we fail. There is no blame to attribute there, that's reality. People can disagree with you and because you are not in control by design, there is a real chance of failure without blame.

This means the NXT Foundation always needs to be clear on both its mandate and the fact that its self imposed. Our mandate exists because we created it. As long as we can convince people we are the right people to do it, we will be allowed to do our work. Otherwise, we will very quickly become obsolete. In a decentralised community, there is no other route.

Failure by Design

This is something that the Bitcoin Foundation doesn't seem to realise. Over the past year, the community has given them many chances to justify itself, for instance by being open about funds. So far, any real numbers have failed to materialise. Now it seems, instead of being open about their plans, they want to raise funds. Without a plan.

To me, it seems this foundation has lost all sense of direction. It has tried to be so many things that it forced itself to squander funds by shooting wildly in the hopes of hitting a mark. It's been conference organiser, educator, thought leader, community leader, without ever choosing a real direction and committing to it. Now, it wants to do an open-ended crowdfunding.

Not once I have seen the Foundation truly realise its mandate is self-invented and thus exhibit the humility that needs to go with it. They exist only by the grace of the community. Once the community truly realises this, they are done.

Of course, there is no bar at all to some people from the community to set up a rival to the Bitcoin Foundation and do it right. The resources are there, the people are there. The same goes for the NXT Foundation. This is the nature of grass roots organisation: as long as initiatives are capable of justifying their existence and delivering on their promises, they cannot fail. The failure of the bitcoin foundation is not the failure of bitcoin or its community.