16th Anniversary of the Genesis Block: A Look Back at Bitcoin's Former News Center

In this episode of the Bitcoin history series, we will go back to April 2013 and explore the controversy surrounding the media contact list on the "Bitcoin News Center" page of the Bitcoin.org website. This seemingly trivial topic actually touches on core issues of Bitcoin culture, such as the uses of Bitcoin, development strategies, and who the true Bitcoin users are.

In March 2013, renowned Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn proposed the establishment of a "Bitcoin News Center" page on the Bitcoin.org website on the BitcoinTalk forum, inviting volunteers to become news contacts. The goal was to provide journalists with a reliable source of information to improve the quality of Bitcoin-related reporting.

However, when submitting relevant pull requests on GitHub, candidates Roger Ver and Jon Matonis sparked controversy. Some Bitcoin developers believe that they are unsuitable for this role due to their political stance. This has led to an intense debate about who best represents Bitcoin.

The core of the controversy lies in how to balance the revolutionary nature of Bitcoin with mainstream acceptance. Some believe that representatives with a moderate political stance should be chosen, while others argue that this contradicts the spirit of Bitcoin. The debate quickly shifted from a technical level to an ideological level.

Eventually, Ver and Matonis were not included in the press center page. This has sparked more criticism questioning whether there should be such an exclusive list. Some believe that this practice is contrary to Bitcoin's idea of decentralization.

Andreas Antonopoulos expressed strong dissatisfaction with this, believing that more diverse voices should be added, and ultimately decided to launch his own bitcoinpresscenter.org website as an alternative.

By July 2013, the controversy had largely subsided. Mike Hearn said that the newsroom has been an overall success, improving the quality of Bitcoin-related coverage. However, by January 2014, Bitcoin.org had taken down the page in favor of recommending the Bitcoin Foundation and Antonopoulos' website.

This brief experiment indicates that establishing a centralized "official" representative list within the Bitcoin ecosystem is not feasible. It sparked too much controversy and was ultimately replaced by more decentralized solutions. This episode reflects the tension between the decentralized nature of Bitcoin and the operations of the real world, and it also demonstrates how the Bitcoin community responds to such challenges.

! [On the 16th anniversary of the founding block, what is the former Bitcoin News Center reporting?] ](https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-31bbcbf8fc84bd1b93a405909083fe24.webp)