IMO I see a couple major problems with the foundation. Maybe this will be clarified when bylaws are published.

- The control of what gets coded by devs into the client (the defacto protocol) needs to be decoupled 100% from the foundation board and monetary/political interests. I see this being pretty hard to achieve when the foundation pays the salaries. What's the famous quote about someone always seeing things in alignment with who pays their salary?

- It was formed in a country that believes it's own laws to be enforceable world wide. What is the foundations view on laws that the USA holds but other countries do not? Are they going to align Bitcoin, through alterations to the client, to the full extent of US law only? For example, tax evasion is not an offense in Switzerland (at least to my last reckoning) but is the most egregious offense in the USA. If someone doesn't report their Bitcoin holdings or income how will the foundation respond to government pressure to install tracking in the client? Will they fight it briefly, not at all, or disband entirely?

Most organizations would rather bend under authority than risk their own demise , or just close their doors. If you think having control over the devs doesn't mean they can manipulate the client then you're wrong. There are devious, tricky ways of pushing forward what they want to happen to Bitcoin. They might take US congress as an example and push multiple changes into a release where some are desirable enough that many users would ignore the undesirables changes. They might make a release no longer work with some older releases such that a gradual fading of freedoms encroaches upon users.

You might say, "Well, none of this has happened yet", but given the powers likely to rise against Bitcoin and the pressures that will manifest it is only a matter of when. My question is will these types of control be defined in the bylaws? Will the foundation close it's doors rather than become an arm of the state? And not just any state but the worst military / corporate state today.

I don't know whether to think that the people behind forming this foundation are naive, in that they don't know what pressures they will come under, or secretly power hunger, in that they fully plan to manipulate Bitcoin into a docile puppy under the heel of law, just or not, to fully realize monetary gain.

I got involved with Bitcoin because of the philosophy and it appears this is a step in rewriting that philosophy, and as usual, for the gain of a few monied interests.