Adam B. Levine (Let’s Talk Bitcoin): Please introduce yourself and give a brief overview of what you hope to accomplish with your candidacy.
Luke Dashjr: My name is Luke Dashjr, and I hope to improve openness within the Foundation, as well as discourage it from taking direct control over Bitcoin resources, but rather work by supporting others who are really responsible for making Bitcoin successful.
LTB: Why do you want to serve on the Foundation Board?
LD: I think that with my technical background and exposure to a wide variety of Bitcoin communities, this will be the best way I can help Bitcoin even further along.
LTB: What makes you qualified for the position?
LD: In the past three years, I have worked directly on many different parts of the Bitcoin project, including Bitcoin-Qt, and am familiar with the intimate details of the core protocols. Because of this, I can offer the community down-to-earth help at improving Bitcoin education and use.
LTB: Do you believe there is a right and wrong way to use a Bitcoin?
LD: This is a complicated topic, and I probably don’t have time in this interview to elaborate on it as much as it deserves. There are definitely some unethical possible uses of Bitcoin: an example might be forcing every Bitcoin user to store your own personal backups by encoding it into the UTXO database, thus taking away everyone’s choice; we’ve all agreed to store financial data, but not necessarily other stuff. It’s quite possible to accomplish the same goals with merged mining, in a way that such data is stored only by users who have made a free decision to participate in it.
LTB: What are your views on Bitcoins software development?
LD: There’s a lot of diversity which is good but at the same time, not enough diversity in full node implementations where it’s really needed the most to make Bitcoin truly decentralized.
LTB: Do you have plans to work with the Bitcoin Community, if so how will you deal with the diversity of opinions contained therein?
LD: I regularly hang out in many Bitcoin communities already, including 3 forums, over 15 active IRC channels, and 3 email discussion groups. I’m always open to joining other communities and discussions where my participation is desired.
LTB: Should the Foundation hire a lobbyist? If yes, why and where should they lobby (D.C., NY, CA, London, Berlin, etc)? If no, why isn’t lobbying important?
LD: This is really outside of my area of expertise. If I had to make a decision like this, I will have to rely almost exclusively on input and discussions with community experts.
LTB: If you had to change one thing about the Bitcoin Foundation, what would it be and why?
LD: I personally feel the "founder members" distinction is unnecessary and harmful to the community. I believe if it wasn’t for this sense of a “social class” distinction, more of the community would be willing to participate in the Foundation.
If you have enjoyed this interview, you can find the other candidates interviews here: