A group of men describing themselves as “Israeli Bitcoin activists” ambushed Bitmain’s Tel Aviv office over the weekend.
The men, seemingly members of a Twitter group set up last week called ‘Fork your Bitmain,’ posted their activities on Reddit Saturday evening.
A night visit in Bitmain Israel offices https://t.co/xI1HaHv8mf (mobile-friendly)
— Fork your Bitmain (@ForkYourBitmain) May 18, 2017
A video shows the “activists” applying posters to the front door of Bitmain’s office, as well as communal areas such as corridors and a parking lot.
The posters appeared to mock the company for the so-called “backdoor” in its mining products known as Antbleed, and warn it is “threatening to execute a Denial-of-Service attack against the Bitcoin network.”
Both issues hit the headlines in recent months, with Bitmain and its CEO Jihan Wu denying any malicious intent.
Fork your Bitmain said in subsequent comments that it “had great fun” staging what it called “protest” against Bitmain.
“The Israeli Bitcoin community have experience organizing similar protests against Israeli banks and corrupted officials, so it was natural for us to apply that model to Bitmain,” it said.
Reactions in r/Bitcoin were less than positive, however, with users calling the stunt “childish” and “petulant.”
Praise nonetheless came from Bitcoin Embassy director Francis Pouliot, who said such “grassroots movements” were “direct result of control and centralization attempts.”
Online advocacy for #Bitcoin has translated into IRL activism. Grassroots movements are direct result of control and centralization attempts https://t.co/r28Enuf4tO
— Francis Pouliot (@francispouliot_) May 18, 2017
The miner itself meanwhile has softened its stance, with Wu saying earlier this month that he “may likely accept” a built-in workaround which would permanently disable another feature, the so-called AsicBoost.