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BUIP011: Andrew Clifford for President
Proposer: Andrew Clifford
Submitted: 2016-01-12
Status: passed

I think that a lot of people will know my posts from bitcointalk,
reddit, and now the excellent bitco.in/forum. As soon as I heard about
Bitcoin I saw the potential benefits that a new non-fiat currency system
could bring to the world. It’s been three years since and what I have
strived to do is to use my knowledge to help Bitcoin succeed. Along the
way I have learned so much more about economics, society, money, human
nature, incentives, complex systems, the Bitcoin ecosystem, all from
people who kindly spend their time informing others.

Like others here I am also dismayed at how the Bitcoin Core developers
have retreated away from ordinary users, rarely listening to them, even
though the voice of the majority is clear on most issues. They no longer
trust market forces to shape Bitcoin but want to micromanage many
aspects of it. Bitcoin Unlimited is a refreshing return to its original
principles that I fully support: main-chain scaling, real
decentralization, 0-conf, user-friendly functions, trust in market
forces, democratic decisions,

My background is mainframe systems. This began when I started
information technology work in 1981 developing accounting applications.
From 1989 I worked as a consultant on financial trading systems in
London including at an interdealer brokerage and then two investment
banks. At one I spent many years as the technical manager for one of its
top five applications which, at its peak, handled 1% of the shares
traded in the world and US$10 billion of settling business per day. This
front-office system and its satellite sub-systems held 300,000+ separate
trading positions across 80 currencies and several markets and supported
a large spectrum of equities-based instruments.

I describe this here because in Bitcoinland this smacks of banksterism,
and some may want to reject my candidacy for this sin. For general info
the people I knew in the IBs were just trying to get ahead in their own
lives, and I was always an outsider anyway, as a consultant, never an
employee.

Needless to say it was a stressful role, and it became time to exit this
rat-race completely. I made a mid-life change of focus in mid-2010 to
write a book which is a decomposition of prehistoric and historic belief
systems from an atheist perspective (they say there is a book in each of
us waiting to be put onto paper – happy to have done it). This was
completed soon before learning about Bitcoin in late-2012. I am not
pushing my publication, just including the link for proof of identity.
http://www.amazon.com/Geologic-Model-Religion-Andrew-Clifford/dp/0957311400

Bitcoin has since been a consuming passion, and many hours have been
spent reading, researching and advising. Time well spent and not
regretted.

Below are two influential threads which I started to help Bitcoin usage
by recommending the “bits” unit and XBT ISO code. Both were proposed
earlier but had zero traction in the ecosystem until these:
’'1,000,000 bits = 1 bitcoin. Future-proofing Bitcoin for common
usage?
’’
**
**Campaign for XBT. A new ISO Currency Code is required for
Bitcoin

If elected President I will do all I can to advance Bitcoin Unlimited.
It is very much needed in the current climate, and I am sure this is
just the start of significant progress into a bright future.