This is an opinion editorial by Cam Randall, a bitcoiner who believes that bitcoin is the key technology in the quest for privacy.
“Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Satoshi Nakamoto?” This is a common question for bitcoin maximalists, a dying breed of lunatics who spend their lives yelling at other people on the internet, especially if they are into cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin.
This terrible and ignorant group of people has been destroying the cryptocurrency community for years. They’re shouting “Scam!” For everything other than bitcoin and keep pointing out how ignorant those who live on the edge are, with bitcoin’s hard-cap limits and fixed monetary policies, sound money isn’t jumping into the revolution.
But why are we paying attention to such a sick and sick group of unknown internet trolls? Why is it so important to say out loud that bitcoin maximism is dead?
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I don’t know the answer, and sorry for that previous exaggeration, but I wanted to point out how emotionally heated the arguments against bitcoin maximalists, recently pushed by the Anti-Maximalist (Antima) movement, have been. Antima is a new and sober wave of criticism against bitcoiners, whose focus on bitcoin is clearly infiltrating some minds and dreams.
What is Bitcoin Maximalism?
First, it is a derogatory term coined by Vitalik Buterin after being upset, in his view, about how closed-minded bitcoiners are. The creator of Ethereum wrote an essay in 2014 in which he defined what bitcoin maximalism is: a theory that states that “it is reasonable and inevitable that bitcoin currency comes to take a monopoly position in the cryptocurrency scene.”
But despite being invented as a way to disrespect bitcoiners because of their bitcoin-only stance and attitude, there was a movement that embraced the meme, making this perspective a part of bitcoin culture. Therefore, self-identified bitcoin maximalists began to rise, especially in the 2018 bear market and beyond.
Within this view, bitcoin maximalism stands as a new paradigm in the realm of money to focus solely on bitcoin in order to avoid cryptocurrencies only. It is a form of monetary maximalism, partly influenced by the economic review of bitcoin done by Dr. Saffedian Ammos in “Bitcoin Standard”.
In this scenario, the main premise is that bitcoin is the real deal and that over 20,000 altcoins are just noise. There will be plans and stuff that provide crazy benefits, but as we saw with the fall of Terra/Luna, these kinds of discrepancies actually last a very short time and end up with a lot of drama and pain for those There are those who do not know.
This is where the word scam comes in.
Maximalists believe in bitcoin as the apex of digital money, and find that it is useless to offer anything that uses blockchain technology yet builds on the pillars of decentralization presented by bitcoin.
But just pointing it out and saying something is a scam makes people react like extremists kill kids or boil oceans! Just to point out that juggling aspects of a protocol and not being able to actually deliver on them is not only good, but scam behavior.
Bitcoiners Know What Bitcoin Matters
Regardless of how you feel about calling things scams, and disregarding the harsh actions that some maximalist labels apply to, but there are actually aspects of rude people, we are with a bunch of people from all over the world. Ends who prefer to focus on bitcoin and are trying to spread the importance of an open monetary network to mankind especially in the age of digital surveillance.
In addition to the speculative bubbles we saw in the last bull run, bitcoiners know that bitcoin matters in the long run.
Bitcoiners are a digital and global community of people who understand that, as the world has recently demonstrated, perhaps the last chance for human freedom is the ability to transact value through this alternative network. Other systems could be compromised or would simply lead to a dystopian world. And as a censorship resistant network, bitcoin is the only option.
This is a guest post by Cam Randall. The opinions expressed are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of BTC, Inc. Or reflect on Bitcoin Magazine.