Bitcoin Forum

To the veterans who have been in the Bitcoin scene for some time...

Throughout time in your observation, has the community become smarter or more dumb?

Faster or slower?

Wealthier or poor?

Pessimistic or optimistic?

Fatter or more trim?

And does it matter for Bitcoin's overall health?

The community seemed lite in rocket scientists at the time I got involved and time has certainly not changed the situation for the better.

Of course 'better' means different things to different people.  If Mike Hearn (of all people!) pulls off a coup and assumes the newly created position of 'benevolent dictator of Bitcoin', he and others of his ilk could legitimately consider the makeup of the community 'better.'

I have been bitcoin enthusiast since 2013. Sure it is not long as there are many people who know bitcoin from the start. But I can answer some of your questions.

1. As bitcoins grow numbers of people using it grow as well. With more people in bitcoin world you can observe many types of users.
I guess times when bitcoin was only used by coders, developers and ultra bitcoin geeks are gone.

2. As for the others question you can generalize: there a many people, some of them poor some of the early adopters rich, part of community is positive while other half negative...


tl;dr It is like discussing whether general society is now better or was better 50 years ago.

A few years ago, only internet geek's and nerd's seemed to know about Bitcoin. {We had a party at my house in 2011 and someone there.. A huge nerd, mentioned something about Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining... Most people there laughed at him, but I took notice... I waited until he went for a smoke outside, and I started to talk to him... We spoke for 3 hours, and those guys who laughed at him, passed out.}

Today that nerd is the one doing the laughing... He has bitcoins all over the show, and we became good friends. The people who laughed at him, is buying Bitcoins from him now.  ;D ;D ;D

I can kick myself, because I did not seriously invest into Bitcoin after our first discussion... I only got into it later, when the price got much higher.

Some of the people coming into Bitcoin now, are of the kind, who laughed at the nerd. They have no technical interest, and are only invested for the possible "riches" that might come with the next price boom. {Are they dumb.... Nah.. some are smart... they are just here for the profit and the money}   

Based on this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1087916.msg
I can't say smarter...

However, that thread almost has to be mostly trolls (comments include that a p2p network is "easy to block" and that Gavin and Hearn would "choose the right chain" [vs the protocol, to orphan]), and bitcointalk doesn't necessarily represent the BTC community as a whole, so I can't say more dumb, either.

i would say that the community is more greedy now than ever, and more scammer each day are raising, in this greediness

everyone here is for fiat and not for bitcoin itself, they find this the best place for a quick buck

Bitcoin core community grows stonger, wealthier, happier and more powerful each day.
All the crap goes to Gavincoin  XT and it's a good riddance for Bitcoin.

Smarter. First there were only smart geeks mostly, then normal people that often enough got rich. Then the scams started when scammers found there is some item of value that you can steel unfound. So they thought at least.

Bitcoiners were very inexperienced about how to handle those magic internet money that somehow was worth something now. And since they were inexperienced, they had to learn it the hard way.

Now these guys are smarter. :)

There are still new users coming in but they get warnings from old ones. Scams didnt stop completely since there are always newbies that dont know much yet and werent educated. And there are a lot of scammers that try to do anything to scam now.

So in total i think bitcoiners learnt VERY MUCH.

Faster, slower? Dont know. Knowledge makes it possible to decide faster but generally?

Wealthier... i think wealth is spread. Many lost much or all... or even more. Some are still very rich. But its possible to get rich still, with the correct idea.

At the moment optimistic longterm and slightly optimistic short term.

Fatter? When i read how many fans use bitcoins to order fastfood i would say fatter... only thing is, every bitcoiner i met is rather thin or normal. Didnt meet a fat person. And i think that comes from mindset too. You dont try to explore something like that without the wish to change your life.

Yes, it matters. Bitcoin needs to get a better look to outsiders. Scams wont help there.

There were a lot fewer trolls. We had a handful of bears that were not as optimistic that the price would go to the moon but they were here because they understood and believed in the technology.

Occasionally we would get a Keynesian that took offense to the deflationary nature of Bitcoin.

But it was typically a place where you could come with questions and get constructive answers because everyone wanted Bitcoin to succeed.

Now half of the threads I visit are filled with ignored users.

BTC community is smarter of course, because they learned a lot from others here and also from their own experience  ;) There are also a lot of new members too  ;D