The history of Bitcoin supremacy (Part 1): "BTC is the only value currency" in the eyes of extreme conservatives

Written by: Jameson Lopp

Compilation: Eric, Foresight News

Over the past decade, the cryptoasset ecosystem has exploded in both size and complexity. While the vast majority of projects are arguably scams or bad ideas, the one percent of projects that do manage to innovate and find product market fit.

Bitcoin supremacy has evolved as a result, but it has also become more complex with splits. Unfortunately, as I will explain throughout this article, certain aspects of the well-known “supremacist culture” work against Bitcoin adoption.

This article will cover:

• Milestones in the history of Bitcoin supremacism
• Describe the pros and cons of supremacist variants and bad behavior
• Provide warnings and advice going forward

Bitcoin Suprematism History

Genesis

Long ago, before “Bitcoin Twitter” formed a community, the Schelling point of Bitcoin discussion and culture was the BitcoinTalk forum. It was a time of simplicity, with hundreds of new web launches and their creators posting regularly on the altcoins board [ANN] post to promote. Almost all projects are simple modifications to the Bitcoin code base, and the changes are mainly marketing, with little substance. The term “shitcoin” also first appeared in the context of the creation of worthless Bitcoin knockoffs:

Altcoins are mostly pump and dump, and as large numbers of Bitcoin users are victimized by scams and unfair economic models, a defensive culture has developed. We agree that it is unethical to distribute tokens to insiders for “pre-mining”, many people believe that even if altcoins manage to innovate and create value, this innovation will eventually be absorbed by Bitcoin, so they may be regarded as Abandoned for the Bitcoin testnet. Altcoins include scams and pointless attempts, and these coins are junk coins that are neither suitable as sound money nor investment.

Extremism certainly existed in the early days, even though the term hadn’t been coined yet. The minimalist attitude tends to be a firm “no thanks” when confronted with worthless altcoin projects. Many of us find it distasteful that some people think they can get rich quick from Bitcoin knockoffs.

In the early post-Satoshi era of protocol development, when Gavin Andresen was the project maintainer, there weren’t really many organized development teams. Everyone who contributes to the codebase is a volunteer - there is no money to fund development. Therefore, Bitcoin needs a developer culture. One way to attract and retain contributor talent is to discourage people from joining other projects by portraying altcoins as useless scams (which they are).

In the first few years, all aspects of the network are weak, so there is a great need to avoid the vampire effect of altcoins. Without the above approach, Bitcoin development probably wouldn’t be self-booting for the next few years, and we’ve seen a significant increase in the depth of the talent pool’s understanding of the protocol’s strengths and weaknesses.

By 2014, Bitcoin had a fairly active group of technical contributors. The future began to look bright after the release of the sidechain white paper: we finally had the answer to how to enable people to innovate within the Bitcoin ecosystem without risking damage to Bitcoin itself. In 2015, the Lightning Network white paper demonstrated further innovations in the area of low-latency, high-volume transactions. Suprematists rejoice, because hyperbitcoinization is clearly underway.

Of course, just a few months later in 2015, we saw the launch of Ethereum, a whole new way of thinking about cryptoasset protocols. Thus began a major shift in crypto asset protocol development.

“Toxic” Bitcoin Suprematism

Mircea Popescu, a leading figure in the development of early bitcoin supremacism before it even became a term, was a prolific writer who spread ideas with lasting impact. At least some of his followers from La Serenissima are still active today, acquiring influential positions on social networks…

Followers of Mircea, sometimes called #bitcoin-assets residents (their space on IRC), formed a distinct culture. In their eyes, if you don’t have a GPG key on WoT (Bitcoin-OTC Network of Trust), then you are not “your own”. If you do succeed in joining WoT, then you need to engage in meaningful interactions and transactions, getting yourself featured through positive reviews from other WoT users.

Popescu is the moderator for this IRC room, and if you don’t fit in with their culture, don’t understand their lingo, and don’t have a high tolerance for prejudice, misogyny, and racism, then you might have a hard time. Mircea doesn’t take his communication very seriously and will speak in exaggerated, incomprehensible ways without caring how others interpret it. Take, for example, his article against Segregated Witness, in which he decided to “explain” his point by offering a bounty for the assassination of a protocol developer. While he did this to make an interesting point about verifiability, it was missed by the vast majority of readers due to its shocking values and lack of detailed explanation.

The #bitcoin-assets team was so determined against making changes to Bitcoin that they forked Bitcoin Core 0.5, created the “real” Bitcoin Foundation, and maintained their own full node implementation.

Due to the high friction of integration and poor outreach efforts, this group remains fairly niche. Although Mircea himself failed to extend his reach beyond the IRC room (he was banned from Twitter for making death threats against Andreas Antonopoulos), some of his actions were imitated by followers on other platforms…

“Bitcoin supremacism” becomes popular

Vitalik Buterin popularized the term “Bitcoin supremacy” in 2014:

“One of the latest ideas that has gotten some attention in parts of the bitcoin community recently is what myself and others have described as ‘bitcoin supremacism’ - essentially, the idea that there are multiple competing cryptocurrencies The environment is not desirable, it is wrong to launch “another token”, and Bitcoin’s monopoly in the field of cryptocurrency is legitimate and inevitable.”

While Buterin didn’t coin the term (it’s been used before, as you can see from previous blog posts), he did position Ether in the prevailing thinking at the time that “altcoins are immoral scams” Fanghe played a role in setting its views on crypto assets as a foil to mainstream views. Suprematism as a derogatory term is clearly intended to remind the Bitcoin community of a certain closed-mindedness or lack of imagination, which could even be said to be anti-free market.

Over the next few years, as countless projects were launched, some Bitcoin supremacists updated their views, becoming more nuanced, while still considering themselves Bitcoin supremacists because Bitcoin is clearly Unlike all other projects, and has no real competition in the currency space. The views of other extremists have become increasingly extreme, arguing that everything other than Bitcoin is actually a scam, and focusing on shaping the narrative to support this view.

Bitcoin scaling war

By 2015, we saw a massive migration from BitcoinTalk to the Reddit forum, which had amassed over 150,000 subscribers by then (it’s nearly 5 million today). While BitcoinTalk does have moderators, it’s also a forum made up of many sections for different topics, so you don’t need to be too restrained as long as you post in the appropriate topic area. Reddit as a platform is a little different. Since different boards in Reddit have moderator and board rules, plus the ability to vote to modify content visibility, I see Reddit as a platform that encourages groupthink and emotional feedback rather than rational speculation. The end result of this is that big boards inevitably become “echo chambers” where if you try to discuss a contradictory idea, your post gets demoted to the point of being forgotten.

The moderators of /r/bitcoin have decided to ban discussion of proposed hard forks amid growing debate over how to proceed with scaling Bitcoin. It was an inflection point when “technological maximalism” (everything would be a Bitcoin sidechain) forced its view into the mainstream discussion. Why? Because r/bitcoin moderators are influenced by Theymos and immersed in technical discussions on the development mailing list. So they just brought their specification to more followers on Reddit.

Naturally, /r/bitcoin mods’ decision to ban discussion of certain topics caused a backlash and prompted many to migrate to /r/btc. Now, 7 years later, /r/btc users are still “wailing” that they lost the scaling war due to “censorship”. If you want to dig into their grievances, you can check out “A History of Censorship in /r/Bitcoin”. Personally, I think it’s a foolish thing to dwell on it, given that the Bitcoin scaling discussion is happening on various platforms that aren’t moderated by Bitcoin supporters, such as Twitter thing. The point is: anyone who cares about the scaling debate knows very well where both sides stand.

During the scaling wars, a large community formed and debated on Twitter. While this is certainly a positive for the Bitcoin meme, helping us reach millions and reinforce their awareness of Bitcoin, there is reason to believe that the quality of the Twitter conversation is a negative. Reddit’s mechanics and algorithms tend to suppress controversy and create “echo chambers,” while Twitter’s engagement mechanics are optimized to increase the reach and engagement of controversial posts, which, combined with the very limited content length of tweets, can make Many tweets are highly viral but not nutritious. While this can be a fun game, it’s not particularly healthy for the quality of discussion.

get rid of pejorative

There is a long history of cultural redefinition of derogatory terms. I think this also makes sense on bitcoin supremacy, because we’re talking about ideological differences: bitcoin supremacism that many people find distasteful is actually considered highly desirable by approved crowds. I also think that while minimalism is a way of navigating the crypto ecosystem, it is also an ideal. Remember, Vitalik’s use of the term is for “maximum dominance”, that is, the crypto ecosystem will be dominated by Bitcoin. While Bitcoin is still undeniably dominant 14 years later, it’s not quite the way many minimalists would like it to be.

During the scaling wars and ICO hype of 2017, the use of the term “Bitcoin supremacy” came into play again. It seems that in the middle of 2018, the use of “toxic” bitcoin supremacism as a descriptor started to really pick up. It’s worth noting that Bitcoin supremacists were later vindicated when it was discovered that 80% of ICOs were scams.

In the scaling debate, we see Samson Mow starting to produce hats as a new form of social signaling. The first hats were “Make Bitcoin Great Again” and “Make Ethereum Immutable” (making fun of The DAO fork).

Hat maker Mow sold more than 10 styles over the next few years; in late 2019 we saw Samson Mow donning a “toxic extremist” hat as the term was used more often — which Is a social signal that shows which side you belong to, using only Bitcoin or using multiple coins.

It is fair to say that the redefinition of extremism around 2017 was a resurgence of the doctrine. It was a response, in part, to the techno-extremist promise that sidechains would spark an explosion of innovation associated with Bitcoin that didn’t materialize. But while sidechains have stagnated, Ethereum and other protocols have seen increased adoption and iterations of new features. As the narrative of techno-extremism becomes increasingly untenable, a new narrative is needed that does not require sidechains to succeed. That’s the echo Mircea provided in the form of users of #bitcoin-assets taking his style and forcing it into the discussion.

By redefining this pejorative term, Bitcoin holders are using it as a social signaling mechanism. We can also see similar signals sent by extremists when they express the view that “bitcoin is not a cryptocurrency”. While this statement is not technically accurate, it hints at the meaning of the deep differences between Bitcoin and every other crypto asset protocol.

Datong World

In 2018 and 2019, we saw what became the cornerstone of what would become the next round of typical Bitcoin supremacy. The Bitcoin standard was released, and countless new memes were produced and entered people’s field of vision.

The Bitcoin expansion war did not end with a bang, but came to an abrupt end amid years of “whimpering”. In 2020, it became clear that a large number of large block Bitcoin forks did not have a strong appeal. Many of the OGs who were active in the Bitcoin scaling wars are getting bored, but this leaves opportunities for newcomers to fill in the void. It didn’t take long before the new crown epidemic provided an opportunity, many despots were attacked, and the money printing machine was fired at full capacity.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an acceleration of extreme lifestyles, fueled by the strengthening of certain extreme cultures (e.g. Cyclops, political populism, etc.).

To be clear, I’ve been involved in some of the above activities myself, and this is not a judgment on any of the topics above.

COVID-19 has greatly accelerated the evolution of bitcoin supremacist ideology, moving away from traditional face-to-face events to new media forms such as virtual reality. The disruption caused by the pandemic has made it crucial to explore alternative content distribution channels, and those who have used social media to engage are the main beneficiaries. A host of newcomers with limited knowledge of Bitcoin dominated the conversation on these new stages, while other Bitcoin enthusiasts also sought information and entertainment on these stages. Due to the borderless nature of Bitcoin interest groups, Bitcoin enthusiasts have a head start in this new era of online interaction. Early adopters of Bitcoin tended to be smart, contrarian thinkers who were happy to debate the authoritarianism related to the epidemic and continue to innovate.

Travel restrictions during the pandemic have also played a big role in drawing attention to the United States. This has helped to boost the profile of Americans less affected by the lockdown, so that the post-2020 narrative has largely tilted toward digital gold. This argument is not new to Bitcoin (it has always been dominant), but it logically makes more sense to first world people who have access to modern financial infrastructure, and those who pay US taxes. attraction.

During this period, I also observed an accelerating trend of “thought leadership.” I see educators and builders being overwhelmed by those who appear to be entertainers and performance artists. Those who are good at “growth hacking” have amassed a large audience despite providing only superficial content. This situation already existed before the epidemic, but it is even more serious now.

The problem was (and still is) that the lessons of the “scaling war” were complex and not easy to understand intuitively. If you’re looking to increase your engagement and presence on social media networks, this content isn’t for you.

What happened after that?

The new platform focuses on storytelling. Some “old-timers” began to tell “great war stories” to naive newcomers. Then the newcomers started to take part in the oral storytelling, telling the traditions of the previous generation, but they didn’t have the first-hand information, so their point of view didn’t have any innovations, it was like a carbon copy.

The economics of these platforms (Clubhouse, Spaces) are designed for lengthy monologues, so their engagement mechanics only further incentivize this behavior.

This is how mainstream Bitcoin culture has degenerated from an expression of ideas (the debate of the 2017 era) to a reenactment of old stories. Old enemies have been replaced by new ones that are more in line with the times, but we have retained the “Bitcoiners vs. the world” ethos of the past, which has led many newbies to overly defend their beliefs. It’s worth noting that this is a recurring cycle, as in 2017 people say how good the 2014 discussion was, and in 2014 people miss the 2011 discussion. This is a natural phenomenon that occurs when a community goes from niche to mainstream.

Anti-Extremists Strike Back

The extremism of toxic extremists makes many moderate supremacists uncomfortable. Outspoken extremists who have amassed massive audiences must make a decision: keep talking about what they find amusing and accept abuse, or self-censor and confine themselves in Bitcoin’s echo chamber? From a cultural standpoint, it’s a bit of a shame, and it sure has a chilling effect when some public figures succumb to audience captives.

Some moderate extremists turned provocateurs for extremists, these people are called “anti-extremists” (Antima), they like to point out the weaknesses / hypocrisy / abhorrent behavior of more extreme extremists, Stimulate them by any means possible. These days, this also includes “using” Bitcoin in ways that purists hate (e.g. Bitcoin NFTs).