{"id":35557,"date":"2023-10-20T14:39:18","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/the-bitcoin-experiment-has-failed-lead-developer-of-the-virtual-currency-jumps-ship-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:39:18","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:39:18","slug":"the-bitcoin-experiment-has-failed-lead-developer-of-the-virtual-currency-jumps-ship-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/the-bitcoin-experiment-has-failed-lead-developer-of-the-virtual-currency-jumps-ship-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe bitcoin experiment has failed\u201d: Lead developer of the virtual currency jumps ship &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/l_bitcoin-2-445.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_bitcoin-2-445\"\/><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One of the lead developers behind bitcoin has parted ways with the virtual currency entirely, saying the \u201cexperiment has failed\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mike Hearn <a href=\"#.1pgwss3d1\">posted a blog over the weekend<\/a> detailing his disappointment with the direction bitcoin has taken and why he\u2019ll be taking no further part in it and off-loading all his holdings.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom the start, I\u2019ve always said the same thing: Bitcoin is an experiment and like all experiments, it can fail,\u201d Hearn writes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut despite knowing that bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it&nbsp;has&nbsp;failed still saddens me greatly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hearn has been engaged in a long-standing debate centred on the need to enlarge the \u201cblocks\u201d through which bitcoin transactions are processed.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This has been a long-standing argument among the bitcoin community, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theweekinbitcoin.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Week in Bitcoin<\/a> founder Alan Tsen tells <em>StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s sort of like a startup&#8217;s founding team having a debate about their product&#8217;s direction,&#8221; Tsen says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The block size debate has been raging on for a while now with many getting frustrated with the core developer team not taking action.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Part of the reason why no resolution hjas been reached is that there is a differing view of what bitcoin&#8217;s core purpose actually is among those deeply connected with the project &#8211; is it a settlement layer or a payment layer?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the post, Hearn says he feels let down by the wider bitcoin community.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has failed because the community has failed,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a crisis of the core system, the block chain itself.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the span of only about eight months, bitcoin has gone from being a transparent and open community to one that is dominated by rampant censorship and attacks on bitcoiners by other bitcoiners.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis transformation is by far the most appalling thing I have ever seen, and the result is that I no longer feel comfortable being associated with the bitcoin community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But in a response posted to Medium, BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen labels Hearn\u2019s actions a \u201cwhiny rage-quit\u201d and claims there are a number of inaccuracies in the post.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s throwing a tantrum on his way out,\u201d Cohen writes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s completely off base for highly technical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><i>Follow <\/i><i>StartupSmart&nbsp;on <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StartUpSmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Facebook<\/i><\/a><i>, <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/startupsmartnow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Twitter<\/i><\/a><i>, and <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/startupsmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><i>&nbsp;<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 One of the lead developers behind bitcoin has parted ways with the virtual currency entirely, saying the \u201cexperiment has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}