"Bitcoin has a Whitepaper"
Actually, no it doesn't. Bitcoin itself is just code. You run code on your computer and that code can update the code called the Blockchain. According to Satoshi:
It's very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. I'm better with code than with words though.
Also:
It's not stable-with-respect-to-energy. There was a discussion on this. It's not tied to the cost of energy. NLS's estimate based on energy was a good estimated starting point, but market forces will increasingly dominate. Sorry to be a wet blanket. Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There's nothing to relate it to.
Also:
I have been following the recent block size debates through the mailing list. I had hoped the debate would resolve and that a fork proposal would achieve widespread consensus. However with the formal release of Bitcoin XT 0.11A, this looks unlikely to happen, and so I am forced to share my concerns about this very dangerous fork.The developers of this pretender-Bitcoin claim to be following my original vision, but nothing could be further from the truth. When I designed Bitcoin, I designed it in such a way as to make future modifications to the consensus rules difficult without near unanimous agreement. Bitcoin was designed to be protected from the influence of charismatic leaders, even if their name is Gavin Andresen, Barack Obama, or Satoshi Nakamoto. Nearly everyone has to agree on a change, and they have to do it without being forced or pressured into it. By doing a fork in this way, these developers are violating the "original vision" they claim to honour.They use my old writings to make claims about what Bitcoin was supposed to be. However I acknowledge that a lot has changed since that time, and new knowledge has been gained that contradicts some of my early opinions. For example I didn't anticipate pooled mining and its effects on the security of the network. Making Bitcoin a competitive monetary system while also preserving its security properties is not a trivial problem, and we should take more time to come up with a robust solution. I suspect we need a better incentive for users to run nodes instead of relying solely on altruism.If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project. Bitcoin was meant to be both technically and socially robust. This present situation has been very disappointing to watch unfold.
Therefore anyone who appeals to the text of the Whitepaper to define what Bitcoin is, is just plain dumb.
"Bitcoin is an economic system"
Correct
"Bitcoin is a developer's playground"
Bcash Craig is a developers playground. He wants to fork every other month to brainlessly forever increase the blocksize into gigabytes when actual block usage is currently averaging at 2 KILOBYTES! If the Bcash Craig max block size had been set to 60KB, no block would have hit the maximum limit in the last 24 hours. The only utility this currency is providing is endless comical entertainment.
"Bitcoin is not digital gold. btc is therefore not bitcoin"
Bitcoin is what the market says it is, and the market doesn't like your ideas. Or even more accurately, the market didn't like your ideas with the original Bcash fork, and then the majority of that sub-market didn't like your ideas with the Bcash Craig fork. Keeping within the current trend, you'll fork yourself into nothingness.
