Quote from: genjix on December 05, 2010, 07:29:10 PM

Quote from: jgarzik on December 05, 2010, 08:15:21 AM

It is extraordinarily unwise to make bitcoin such a highly visible target, at such an early stage in this project. There could be a lot of "collateral murder" in the bitcoin community while you make your principled stand.

Having read this thread, I've done a U-turn on my earlier view and agree. Lets protect and care for bitcoin until she leaves her nursery onto the economic killing fields.

I'm sort of wondering just when that might be?

I've stated my position on this, but I'm willing to listen to group consensus on this issue to so far as this isn't an irreversible decision. The fact is that there are dozens or hundreds of other opportunities that Bitcoins could help with, and I'm willing to work on most of those other ideas well before even trying to lobby Wikileaks for accepting Bitcoins as a donation.

If Wikileaks finds out and advertises the link for Bitcoin donations, we should be prepared for what might be a huge influx of new people into the forum and as users. I think the common consensus is that would happen even without a push by the Bitcoin community at all. Bitcoins are also low key enough that I personally don't think the popular news media (and with that the government regulators) would pay attention to Bitcoins on any sort of scale, but I can understand why people on this forum don't want to expose the Bitcoin community on this issue.

I still think it is the right thing to do and I personally am not afraid of what would happen to Bitcoin as software or to the network if such an influx of users and attention happened. Something is eventually going to break like that, so the Bitcoin community ought to be prepared for that eventuality. If this concrete example is somehow going to spur on developments that make Bitcoin more secure, it sounds like even the possibility that Wikileaks may use Bitcoins is a good thing. If not this particular incident, there will be something else like this which may eventually push Bitcoins into the limelight.

If Satoshi wants to stay timid, that is his opinion. We can't stay like this forever though.