Supposing this is really Rusty Russell [0], I would encourage some hesitation before you imply that they are involved in advocating for less than savory things.
Rusty Russell has done a lot of great work on Linux (the TCP stack in particular) and you've probably used some of his work. For all I know, Russell might be deluded and Blockstream might be an evil brain-washing machine, but if Russell was in it for the money he could or would just as easily have done that 10 years ago rather than today.
I was pointing out the obvious logical flaw in what he said, that's all.
I'm sure he is a nice guy and maybe he's even funny.
Blockstream does need to recoup the 70 million in funding they've received though and it's a fact that they have most of BitcoinCore's top contributing developers on their payroll, with exception to Wladimir.
Clearly I'm not the only one concerned about a conflict of interest and I'm sure it's hard to see conflicts of interest if you're the one at the center of it.
One last edit, aside from a grammar correction: authority deserves scrutiny.
Hi, ptokb3, you seem to have created this account to make these posts but you see fit to go on about scrutiny. Seems odd to me.
Blockstream does support Bitcoin infrastructure development-- something much of the Bitcoin industry has failed to do, perhaps a company you work for and are concealing through your anonymous posts?-- but that is a far cry from a "majority" by any definition. E.g. in the last 3 months 58 people have made contributions to Bitcoin Core, 7 work for Blockstream. Sorted by commits in the last year, among the top ten, 3 work for blockstream (all founders of the company). -- just as we've done for the last 5+ years (the same group has been in the top 10 contributors pretty much the whole time).
Whats your actual allegation beyond pointing out that we spend some resources supporting the public infrastructure we all depend on?
I'm a software consultant for my own developing firm. I don't have a conflict of interest. As I've said before, this is a new account and my only account here. I've read HN for some 5-7 years now as a morning news source and have not gotten involved in the conversation until this point.
To the issue:
MIT would probably be happy to support more Core developers and that would definitely lessen the current conflict of interest.
Is it hard to see that one company paying most of the top developers in the accepted codebase is something that makes people uneasy? It does and the considerable pushback from modest on-chain scaling (which needs to happen eventually anyway) has people worried that you're (Blockstream) is trying to control or limit Bitcoin due to your funding from AXA.
MIT doesn't support _any_ developers. MIT DCI pays MIT and is funded by undisclosed parties, but you never even care to ask about that. (And not that MIT is magically benevolent, in any case...)
We've tried for _years_ to get sustainable funding for development; but the Bitcoin 'industry' is just not interested.
> paying most of the top developers
Why do you keep repeating this misinformation? As I pointed out, e.g. three of the top ten by commit activity work for blockstream (and all of us were founders of the company). This is not most.
> has people worried
Has pseudonomyous sock accounts on the Internet who appear to own not much (to zero) Bitcoins; worried, at least.
> modest on-chain scaling (which needs to happen eventually anyway)
I think all the engineers at blockstream that work on Bitcoin supported segwit which roughly doubles block transaction capacity. (in a backwards compatible while improving scalability, to keep the operating costs low).
> due to your funding from AXA
Pretty perplexing, AXA isn't even to be broken out in the reports I have (we have many investors). I've never even had a conversation with anyone from AXA myself.
It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll.
> you never even care to ask about that
Honestly, I don't know where that would be public information to know to ask about it.
> to own not much (to zero) Bitcoins;
That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments.
> segwit which roughly doubles block transaction capacity
This only happens if all wallets adopt it, which makes them write/fix their wallet software upstream. That takes time. It's not a quick enough solution for an urgent problem.
Last, if you're taking money from someone there is a conflict of interest there.
"It's hard to get a man to understand something if his job depends on him not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair
Large investors usually want something back for their investments. Maybe you don't know what that is right now, but it's legitimate for regular users to be weary of it.
Rusty Russell has done a lot of great work on Linux (the TCP stack in particular) and you've probably used some of his work. For all I know, Russell might be deluded and Blockstream might be an evil brain-washing machine, but if Russell was in it for the money he could or would just as easily have done that 10 years ago rather than today.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_Russell