Bitcoin Forum

Had a joking discussion with Franko today on twitter, on how we are the old men in crypto.

For reference here is the tweet https://twitter.com/FrankoCurrency/status/745230649339031553

His statement and my subsequent responses got me thinking. Has public involvement or mentality changed so dramatically over the years with involvement in crypto? I have my own thoughts and opinions on the matter, but in order to not taint the responses ill refrain from doing so.

So I guess this question is really posed to the "old guard" of crypto, the hero's and legendarily's here.



Do you feel that your ethos does not align with today's crypto enthusiast?

My observation about this is that the strong liberal and anarchist users have declined over the years and the new generation of Bitcoiners are more speculative in nature and out for some profit on the technology. We have moved from a community with idealistic views on changing the world to a better place for all, to a world where everyone just takes as much as they can from the technology to profit the most.

This is just a natural change during a phase where mainstream adoption are becoming a reality and a more diverse group of people are getting involved with the technology. ^sad^

This is how I understand it too. There are very few of us that believe in the original ethos of crypto.

I really dont feel that it has i have noticed the same people posting here time and time again, not alot changes really.....

I agree with this observation. There was an increased inflow of mainly speculative trader-type "investors", who don't know / don't really care much about Bitcoin. Their primary interest seems to be getting high fiat money returns. They chose to invest in Bitcoin because of the high volatility, not because of the unique monetary aspects of the currency.

It were these kind of people, that backed the destructive XT-/Classic altcoin schemes. They do not care at all about Bitcoins concept as a free, decentralized currency. They would agree to anything for a quick fiat profit, regardless if Bitcoin is destroyed in the process.

I really hope that these people will not be successful with their strategy and leave for other, more volatile assets in the future.

ya.ya.yo!

The English has certainly become more "second language"

not sure if that is coincidence or correlation

I'm a noob in comparison to the OP. I reckon it's pretty obvious that the original ideals are being drowned out in a sea of greed and opportunism.

I'm gonna guess that if you put a poll up offering those magical returns that people are dreaming of in return for selling out the core principals most are gonna run towards as it fast as they can go.

Would I? Yeah. Probably.

When I entered the scene, Bitcoin was a geek coin and mostly unknown to the majority of the people around me... lately a lot of people sat up and took notice and everyone are talking about THE

BLOCKCHAIN. I have also seen a increase in the amount of scams and hacking going on, but these people just follow the money. Some of the positive things I have seen, were the creativity of charity

and innovative applications increasing. I admired the micro payment possibilities and still do, and I think that might just be one of the things that would lead to the creation of a killer App that would

take Bitcoin into the mainstream arena. People are after all just human and Bitcoin will not change that.  :(

ideology:
the old ideology was of people in their homes having full control of a new financial system they can call their own without government ownership and taxation
the new ideology is that unless your part of a niche group of people you have no voice in this financial system, if you dont like the new direction they want, bugger off

community:
the old community were liberal 'geeks' wanting something different than what the corporate governance options were
the new community are greedy capitalists who want control of something that can rival and then become what the corporate governance option was

time:
the oldtimers seen the longterm possibilities of financial freedom
the newtimers see what they can grab NOW, to then run off and not care about the future

I was made aware of Bitcoin during the November/December 2013 rise and fall,
so I have been here for roughly 2.5 years now and the difference between when
I first participated in the scene and now is very surprising (and sad). Even though
I was not part of the Bitcoin beginning and did not participate in the original ideal,
when I arrived here some of those people were still talking and their arguments
were valid and compelling about Bitcoin was not another payment processor system.
There was a much larger point and goal. It was undiscovered territory.

It seems to me the current average user or new comer to Bitcoin does not care about
such issues or ideals and just wants it to work the way they think it should work. They
don't understand the backstory nor the original reason (IMO) for it's creation. Sadly,
they actually do not care about that truth and as a result, even though their numbers
are adding to the system and helping the system grow, are actually enemies
to this system and one day may reach a point where their ignorant voices will force
changes that make Bitcoin the same as centralized corporate payment processors
regulated and compliant with blacklisting and other methods to oppress.

If the time comes, that the system is fundamentally changed and becomes the opposite
of those original ideals and hopes, it will be used to oppress individuals including those who
wished and pushed for those changes.

If that day comes, we must destroy Bitcoin to save ourselves and future generations.
Satoshi opened Pandora's box, it is now our responsibility to mitigate any diabolical use.

Has community ideology changed over time?

Just as a matter of interest, what exactly was the community ideology way back when ?

Each person in the community has their own opinion on the ideology or purpose.
Not surprisingly, here is your previously stated opinion below:

oooh

might want to apply cold water to that

Just as a matter of interest, what exactly was the community ideology way back when ?

When most simply broken down:

Ideology "back when" = Freedom to, from, by, and for.

So again I ask - what was the "ideology" that held the community together ?

My view ? Not much more than this - (a background of a) corrupt debt based monetary system meltdown+a new burgeoning freedom of expression via encryption = bitcoin.

I know why I got interested. I know what I believe. I don't know about the "community" though.


 

you cannot get a single thin definition of the community mindset shorter than
Ideology "back when" = Freedom to, from, by, and for.

ofcourse each individual person will define their "freedom" differently.
some will say freedom from credit reports and application forms just to put funds somewhere
some will say freedom to hoard over $10k somewhere without having to declare it very time it moves
some will say freedom from the fractional reserve debt creation markets.
blah blah blah hundreds of variances.. and so on

but in short the most common mindset, brought down to the most simplest explanation to cover the whole community was
Ideology "back when" = Freedom to, from, by, and for.

When Bitcoin wasn't really worth a high fiat value everyone involved was just interested in Bitcoin for it being Bitcoin.

Now there is unfortunately a large majority of people just involved to make a fiat profit from it, although this is expected.

Yep, and it's bound to be that way, too.  Just like how all the idealistic hippies got co-opted by megacorporations in time.  I think everything trends toward the median--but there is bound to be strong anarchist and even criminal tendencies with bitcoin.  Hell, we see this every day on bitcointalk with crackers and scammers and whatnot.

I am not qualified to speak on the old guard, as I was not into bitcoin until last year.  I did lurk this forum for quite some time, but I don't have a sense of how things were.  It definitely seems as though this forum has gotten less intelligent.

I stepped away for the last couple years...had a bad habit of getting caught up in emotional swings and losing BTC on every trade...went into hodl mode and stopped logging in.

I got all excited with the recent run up and logged back in a few days ago and, yeah, a lot more electrolytes in this forum now

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DQmraWcRIgk/VZQ6LHS0PsI/AAAAAAAAQmM/FaR3WSF5e9E/s1600/I-cant-believe-you-like-money-too-We-should-hang-out.jpg

Or it could just be that the "anarchist" type doesn't frequent these boards anymore like they used too... But yeah, I definitely agree that there is generally a different "vibe" from people that flock to cryptocurrencies. 

Before it was more of the dream of achieving financial freedom from banks and governments... now it's the dream of having banks and governments accept and use bitcoin and to have it as "mainstream" as possible.  That, and people here are more the wall street/day trader type of people.

Yep! Back in March of last year I brought attention to this community about Leroy Fodor's StakeMiners Ponzi. Since then, according to Leroy over 180 Investards invested in the scheme, some later came crying to me as to how to get their moneys back since Leroy changed the site's ToS in limiting weekly withdrawal requests to ONLY 0.35 BTC creating a backlog going on two years. Meanwhile, supporters of Cryptsy have teamed up with Chantha Owen Lueung's Crypto-city designed to harbor nefarious actors in attempts to further fleece the less intelligent members of this community and from around the world.

Welcome to capitalism at its finest. People are just out trying to make some money.

I believe it has stayed the same and changed at the same time, depending upon your perspective.

Crypto has so many moving parts that when you add in more people there will be people with different ideologies.

I think the main theme is still the same but you just have more people in it for pump and dumps that don't really care what Bitcoin stands for and why Satoshi created what he created.

Lots of good responses here, some of the pretty funny (the reference to Idiocracy is golden!). But the one thing that stood out the most was the bolded area below






I also have a general feel that its more of a trading/less tech savvy group of people joining today, not that there is anything wrong with that! But there also seems to be a larger increase in greed as well. My original interpretation of the ethos was "financial freedom", and that is what I go by when I perform the work I do at the LA. The price is inconsequential to me for Bitcoin, Litecoin, or anything else (although I do understand there is a significant coloration between price and activity/usage).

BUT....what really grinds my gears honestly is the guise of caring about cryptos where the real intention is spreading either spreading misinformation about other cryptos or attempting to pump your own interests.


Interestingly enough, I did have someone PM me on this topic because he wasnt sure if his thoughts would be trolled. Paraphrasing, he essentially stated the community is now blinded by greed, robbing the blind, or posting nonsense to get paid, thus creating a poisonous atmosphere.




Maybe the above quote I bolded is a sign of good things, "they just want it to work and dont care how". Ultimately this is/was the goal of cryptos, in order to get adoption. The old adage I love to use is grandma, and grandma dont care about how the blockchain works.