It was inevitable that as “normies” enter Bitcoin they would bring their baggage with them. Expecting them to not arrive with any baggage would be like thinking a tortoise can shed its shell.
Part of the baggage these “Blockchainers” bring with them is an almost religious belief in the State. They cannot conceive of life without the State ordering every aspect of life, and have been very well trained to resist any idea that in any way turns society towards that goal. This is why they hate Bitcoin; they hate it so much that they’ve constructed a new vocabulary to talk about Bitcoin without talking about it directly. That’s why they habitually use the meaningless words, “Blockchain” and “Cryptocurrency”.
Bitcoin has nothing to do with belief. Saying that Bitcoin users are “believers” is a thinly veiled attempt to disparage people working to flesh out Bitcoin’s ecosystem of software and services. There is nothing at all subversive about Bitcoin, any more than it is subversive to replace snail mail with email. It only appears to be subversive to people who believe that the State should be the only organization that creates and manages the form and supply of money. People who have positioned themselves as outsiders to Bitcoin by their own thinking are deeply resentful of what they incorrectly perceive as a closed group of elitists, where in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
Bitcoin is very open, tolerant and accepting of people from different backgrounds and cultures. Vegans get along with beef only carnivores. Libertarians tolerate Socialists. All the different people in Bitcoin know that the thing they have in common supersedes everything else while they are together for this one subject. It is a remarkable side effect of being involved in such an important project. People who don’t understand this, or don’t know their limitations, and who refuse to put aside their personal beliefs have a real problem, however. Bitcoiners are a no-nonsense, facts only group of people with a laser focus. They have been through almost a decade of attacks both on the software and on the personal level and a group like that values camaraderie, honesty and skill, and the ability of people to sacrifice or suspend their deeply held beliefs so that they can maintain that camaraderie for the good of Bitcoin.
In reality, there are no internal divisions in Bitcoin. The software is the standard and rallying point that everyone must agree on for the system to work. After that, it is a matter of what projects you want to build on that standard. What is intolerable on the other hand, are liars, hucksters, fraudsters and other types, trying to attach themselves to Bitcoin, and then expecting the same courtesy, camaraderie and respect as Bitcoiners receive, as if these are tick boxes on an HTML form. They are not.
Fraudsters, hucksters, and liars should be admonished and shunned. If outsiders don’t understand why these people are being shunned and ridiculed, this is a problem that they have, and not a problem that people in Bitcoin have. Cohesiveness at any cost is toxic to orderly systems being created, and if you remember, there were SegWit2X proponents who openly said that community cohesion was more important than the software. This is exactly the sort of nonsense that is intolerable, and that will not be tolerated.
The people who try to corrupt Bitcoin know deep down that this is correct. If it were not the case, the huge numbers coming into “The Space” would not pay any attention to the “intolerant ” Bitcoiners. The fact of the matter is that people are paying attention to what Bitcoiners are thinking and doing, because what they’re doing is what matters, and what other people are doing does not. It is what Bitcoin is doing that will change the world and nothing else. Once again, if that is not true, then why are you complaining? Go ahead and change the world with your alt-coin “Permissioned Blockchain” reversible transaction vapourchain.
The incumbents who don’t understand Bitcoin can say whatever they like. The fact of the matter is that despite all their money, they cannot out-compete Bitcoin and can’t develop rival systems. They tried with R3CEV and failed, conceding that they’re completely abandoning “Blockchain”. The “real world” that these people inhabit can’t innovate, and Bitcoin is only impractical for them. It is on the other hand, very practical, useful and transformative for everyone else, and this is the true source of their anti-Bitcoin rage; they don’t want to be disrupted and are grinding their teeth and clenching their fists as Bitcoin continues to grow in size and threat.
There are no real internecine battles in Bitcoin. Bitcoin has won, and all alt-coins are inferior. That is a statement of plain fact. Anyone paying attention knows this, and people who don’t know it can be forgiven for falling behind. There is so much development going on, so much to read (much of it hard to find) that no one can keep up with all of it. There is a minimum amount that you need to know, and if you know that amount, you can safely make some predictions. This is what the “normies” can’t do, and because accepting the actual truth means they will need to change their minds it is painful for them to hear things like, “All alt-coins are garbage and can never beat Bitcoin”. Remember — many of these people have invested money in alt-coins and expect them to rise in value dramatically. “Bitcoin Maximalists” telling them, “You’re insane, LOL: HODL” not only hurts their feelings, but it also makes them frightened because they’re going to lose money.
Bitcoin twitter is a very useful place to be kept abreast of what’s going on, and when a scam is identified there, you can bet the information is good, especially if it comes from one of the top 300 accounts. Saying something is a scam is not “derision” it is a public service announcement. Any honest man would welcome an alarm system like this, which helps to keep people away from losses. People without any experience in software culture find it difficult and harsh. It has been like this for decades, and it will not change to accommodate people without any stake in either money or software, and it is right that it should remain a ruthless place that doesn’t tolerate fools.
Believing that a united front could help ensure a more constructive legal environment is the opinion of outsiders with no stake in Bitcoin or software. They don’t own companies either, and don’t understand what Bitcoin is. Their belief that a “Constructive Legal Environment” is needed for development is just that — a belief — and furthermore, it is one that isn’t based in reality. This is why people in Bitcoin react with impatience to nocoiner nobody normies desperate to inject nonsense like “Governance” into Bitcoin; they don’t know how anything works, and want to “normieize” Bitcoin. It’s pointless and stupid.
Globally important infrastructure software has been developed for decades without the involvement of the State or a “legal environment”, and anyone familiar with the software I’m talking about knows this. All of it was built without a “regulatory framework” or any other worthless garbage, and the internet we have and rely upon and love works perfectly as a result of engineers working on problems without “help” from regulators or wannabe regulators, normies, and other types. This is an indisputable fact, and it applies unambiguously to Bitcoin which is nothing more than a software project, like any other. It doesn’t require help from non-software developers, the companies that use it don’t need special frameworks or legal environments either. There are more than enough laws to cover every possible circumstance and company/user interaction in Bitcoin; the current general legal structure was sufficient to allow the Internet and all the services on it to grow and serve, and Bitcoin and services built with it are no exception.
Whatever you may think Bitcoin is, (which is probably wrong, if you think Bitcoin has DNA) you are free to develop your own software and put it on the market. Bitcoin has a single purpose, and all the developers on it know what that purpose is. Your agreement is not required or requested, and neither is your understanding. You are free to use whatever software you like and to project your values on to it and inject them into the rules you develop. If your tools work, and the market wants it, then you win. If they do not, then you fail and you lose. What you cannot do is go to other people’s projects and demand that they obey you and submit to your ethics or crazy ideas.
As for “Bitcoin Maximalists” being in a minority, this is once again, normie politics trying to insinuate itself into Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not a democracy; there are no votes on technical decisions, and if you had been paying attention, everyone has been through this before; the majority does not rule in Bitcoin. Even by this logic, if you really had a majority who believed what you believe, you should be able to jumpstart your own Bitcoin alternative since you have the numbers. The question is, why don’t you do it? The answer is that no one will follow you, because they are all rational actors who have common cause in Bitcoin. They don’t want your “majority rule” they want their money protected.
You can believe that accommodation with “policymakers” (who some Bitcoiners call violent thugs) is a good idea, but this will not change the facts. No one wants your conception of what Bitcoin should be, and it has been rejected several times. Your belief that tools can only achieve their potential for humanity in concert with regulators has already been proven false thousands of times, and Bitcoiners are not willing to allow this ahistoric view to dominate and ruin Bitcoin. These people know that launching a crippled alt-coin while Bitcoin exists is pointless because Bitcoin will always be superior; the only way their world-view can survive is if Bitcoin is corrupted or destroyed. That is why they keep focussing on it. Bitcoin is right over the target; that’s why its users are taking flak.
Libertarians don’t care if you use Coinbase for your Bitcoin needs. What they care about is being able to use software in ways that they want. The normies can’t stomach the idea that people will be able to “be their own bank” and control their money. They know secretly that when everyone finds out how easy it is to be your own bank, Coinbase will die and so will any chance that the State will be able to regulate Bitcoin. This is the real subject that these people will not talk about. Libertarians and Bitcoiners are not “hardliners”. That’s like saying people who demand the correct change when they go to the supermarket are hardliners; no, they just know how to do math.
These people can’t accept that institutions are no longer needed for trust. They are the true believers, not Bitcoiners; they are believers in The State. They are the ones mesmerized by Doric columns and glass skyscrapers. They are the ones who accept Security Theatre instead of security. They are the ones who believe in the FDIC, the Federal Reserve and its paper dollars and all things like it. With Bitcoin, an entire layer of their psychological model and world view is replaced by something they can’t understand, and hate, and this is deeply terrifying for them.
Trustlessness is not an ideal; it is here right now, and it is the foundation of “The Transformation”. You may not believe that it is possible, but this is a problem of your thinking only. Furthermore, you may not want to live in the Bitcoin world, but you don’t have a choice in the matter. You can’t force other people to live in your lowest common denominator changeless nightmare because you don’t like the sound of Bitcoin. It is very telling that people who reject the absolute truth of math and Bitcoin’s trustlessness prefer Ronald Reagan’s “Trust, but verify.” over “Don’t trust, verify”. This is the thinking of Statists, who believe (mistakenly) that the State is more trustworthy than arithmetic. It is the thinking of totally captured, brainwashed men, who are more like battery chickens than humans. Bitcoin has opened the door to their cage, and they refuse to step out into the sunlight because they’re frightened. So sad!
These people say, “trust is unavoidable if we are to thrive”. Who is “we”? I think “we” in this case are the Socialists and violent Statists who have suddenly woken up to the death blow threat that Bitcoin represents to their inherently unethical and dying system. These emotional and pathetic pleas for tolerance of their bad ideas are all they have left as an argument to Bitcoin. “I just don’t want it to win!” they shriek, with their cereal box economic theory. People can form networks now that don’t require trust. This is the breakthrough that Bitcoin gives us. Rejecting this offer like a spoiled brat who sucks on the corner of his blanket will not be accepted as the standard response or baseline. It won’t be accommodated, pandered to or given any quarter.
As usual, nocoiners talk about Internet Of Things and all sorts of use cases that have nothing to do with the problem Bitcoin was designed to solve. These are nothing more than a giant Straw Man, and once again, there is nothing preventing you or anyone else from building these “Blockchain” systems like R3 tried to do. If they work and serve a purpose, then no one can or will have anything to say, and if they do, you can always answer with, “I’m rich and you’re not”. You cannot, however, say you are launching a record-keeping token (without any software) and expect not to be ridiculed. Speculation about future use cases is interesting and welcome, but that isn’t the basis of anything real, and calling on the SEC to stop scammers from doing this is absurd, because these people are engaging in fraud, for which there are many laws to punish them with.
Bear in mind also, that the SEC only has jurisdiction in the USA. Asking for one country to seize control of the lever of Bitcoin is inexcusable. You are not the boss of Bitcoin, and no single country or agency inside a country has the right (or power) to govern Bitcoin. If you concede that the SEC does have jurisdiction over Bitcoin, why should it be the SEC, and not the CNV, ASIC, APRA, AUSTRAC, FMA, SCB, SCB (BS), CBB, FSMA, IFSC, NBFIRA, CVM, FSC, BNB, IIROC, CIPF, CIMA, CSRC, FSCEY, HANFA, CySEC, CNB, DFSA, EFSA, FSAEE, MKM, FINFSA, AMF, CECEI, REGAFI, ACPR, NBG, BaFin, FSC, CMC, SFC, FinCom, HFSA, CBH, SEBI, CDSL, NSDL, CoFTRA, CBI, ISA, CONSOB, FSC, JSDA, FSA, JSC, CMA, KCCI, FCMC, BDL, AFE, LSC, CSSF, MFSA, FSC, CNBV, CDVM, AFM, FSPR, NZX, FDRS, NFSA, SEC, SMV, SEC, PFSA, CMVM, QCB, CNVMR, FCSM, CRFIN, Naufor, CROFR, CBR, ARB, ASROS, ЦРОФР, FMRRC, FSA, CMA, FSA(SC), MAS, FSB, CNMV, CBSL, SEC, FSA, FINMA, SCB, BOT, CMB [SPK], NSSMC, UCRFIN, DFSA, U.A.E, SCA, FCA, CFTC, FINRA, NFA, SIPC, FDIC, FATCA, or the VFSC?
Who made you the boss? Who do you think you are?
The irreversibility of Bitcoin is non-negotiable. You may not like it that systems like this exist, but Bitcoin’s features are all essential and will not be weakened to make you feel good. You may be able to concoct prosaic scenarios where a reversible transaction may be desirable, and you may be able to write a tool that can do it. The question is, once again, why does this have anything to do with Bitcoin, and why are you unwilling to tolerate analysis of your idea before a single line of software is written? Once again, these people fail to understand why Bitcoin exists, and the nature of the problem it solved.
It is not vital that standards, governance models and, legal frameworks be added to any statute. Bitcoin has very rigorous standards, and its governance is rigid and safe. There are enough laws on the books to cover fraud, and it is fraud and bad actors that are the problem, not service providers. Calls of this kind, for regulation and governance, are asking for something simply to make the hapless impotent nocoiner feel good; they base everything on their feelings and not facts.
The only thing Bitcoin needs is technical development on both the client software and the services built on it. Every other internet service, from Facebook to Twitter to every BitTorrent site was built that way, and these services changed the world, without the help of frightened men who don’t like change chiming in with their paranoia. Bitcoin doesn’t need “governance” either. It is extremely well governed, well protected and moving forward at a fantastic pace, without any help from normies, nocoiners and other types.
You will be prevented from interfering with Bitcoin, and judging by the recent court cases rejecting the idea that Bitcoin is money, and the near-universal admission that BitLicense was a terrible terrible mistake, the Bitcoiners are being proven right. Every day that Bitcoin persists and grows and becomes stronger, the arguments for governance get weaker. Previous attempts to impose governance have failed and all future attempts will fail also. No one wants what you’re suggesting, no one needs it. Bitcoin will thrive without it and tens of thousands of companies and billions of people will use it without any of the blanket sucking nonsense that a vanishingly small non-contributors are crying for.
Bitcoin is perfectly fine. It has never been better, or more exciting. It is going to not only change the way people pay online, change the way people use and see money, open e-commerce to billions who were excluded, but it will change the way people think about governance.
GAME OVER.
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