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absent saints managing them

Aspiring saint here.

The good news is that you can structure the non profit to prevent against not only external influence but also internal influence.

See: https://x.com/bitschmidty/status/1967233629618065709

327 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 26 Mar
Aspiring saint here.

IMHO you are one. I was super impressed by how you navigated the filter debate at Bitcoin Commons. I'd also guess most of bitcoin's nonprofits are run by saints, or at least saint-adjacent folks.

The main point I'd like to make: the incentives of nonprofits are relatively novel, and as we get more of them, they will speciate, and some will be more ideological, more influence-oriented, and less saint-like.

In Austin alone, more than half of my bitcoiner friend group went from employed at bitcoin companies to being grant supported/assisted over the last few years. In some ways it's good; they can focus on odds and ends that'd be ignored otherwise. In some ways it's bad; they are in a sort of virtual, uncanny economy now.

So, I'm less worried about corruption and dev independence, which you all seem to do good with. I'm worried about unintended consequences; bitcoiners and bitcoin culture losing touch with reality.

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290 sats \ 1 reply \ @schmidty 26 Mar

Nonprofits cannot escape market forces. Although I agree we should be vigilant to the degree we can.

My biggest fear (although better understood) hearing about so many people relying on grants is whiplash is funding dries up. We (Brink) navigated a bear market ~fine, but its not fun. And when Bitcoin is down 80%, you can imagine where donations are.

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104 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 26 Mar

Having no financial support for bitcoin devs is scary, and it's less hypothetical than my concern. It just tickles my tizz when ecosystem-level incentives change this fast. There's opportunity for harm and I want more folks to be suspicious.

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