pmlaw/The-Bitcoin-Foundation-Legal-Repo — pull request #4 by johndillon (2013-05-03 04:05:34+00:00)
Title: Add promotion and protection of decentralization to purposes

Satoshi didn't create Bitcoin because he wanted another way to pay people over the internet. If that was all he wanted to do, he could have done it via conventional, legal means. Setup some company, hire some lawyers, navigate regulation.

What is special about Bitcoin is that it is a technology, not an organization. As Satoshi said:

> Then strong encryption became available to the masses, and trust was no longer required. Data could be secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what.

Bitcoin is an idea, expressed in code, and a group of people who chose to accept and value that idea. The Bitcoin idea places as little trust in others as possible, and for what remains, the valid transactions placed into the blockchain, the decision is made by a democratic vote among everyone who possesses hashing power. It is decentralization that makes the Bitcoin idea valuable, and what makes it so fundamentally revolutionary compared to what came before it.

Without decentralization Bitcoin is just another way to pay people over the internet. A Bitcoin where only a select few can participate in that democratic vote is simply not the Bitcoin Satoshi created, and is no different from the centralized systems that came before it.

Anonymity is a key part of true decentralized decision making. Without anonymity you can-not make decisions freely, decisions like what transactions you accept as valid Bitcoins, and what transactions you place into the blocks you mine. It is notable that Satoshi himself wisely decided to use a pseudonym rather than his real identity, allowing him to make choices about Bitcoin free of interference from authorities.

While the blockchain technology will always be public to some degree, we must not promote further encroachment on the ability of individuals to transact and mine with the privacy that they desire, be it fully anonymous, or no privacy at all. User-defined privacy must continue to remain a part of Bitcoin and the Foundation should promote and develop technologies that expand upon the options available, and make the whole spectrum of privacy options easier to access by all users.

Finally, pragmatically speaking, the Foundation has been repeatedly attacked by those who see it as contrary to that decentralized nature of Bitcoin. To some extent those people are right: like it or not the Foundation has a significant amount of control over the direction of Bitcoin by employing Gavin and funding development. There are very real social reasons why that control exists. By making a clear statement of purpose that includes decentralization, the foundation can help meet those concerns.

Of course the Foundation is not Bitcoin. If the Foundation does not support these goals and values, the only honest thing to do is make it clear what goals and values the Foundation does have, so people can make an informed decision about whether they want to support it.