Crypto "echo chambers"

[Rockie1234]

Echo chamber - an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered.

For a long time now (and particularly since the big crash after $20k), I've noticed how unhealthy a lot our cryptocommunities are. Bitcointalk in this regard is not the worst offender, but recently someone replied to a post of mine saying how a lot of their beliefs in cryptocurrency were just parroting without any real thought or research.

This phenomenon is a hundred times worse on individual coin/token communities. One observation I have made is the more obscure and unlikely to succeed a coin is (provided it is not a scam), the more fanatically users believe in its success. Whether this is self-deceptive rationalisation after seeing the price of their coin plummet or plain delusion I don't know. To give an example, I recently came across a 3 year old coin with 0 volume, who have almost nothing to offer, yet users were unironically talking about a "10 trillion marketcap" within 5 years.

Communal reinforcement in this way is incredibly dangerous, and could prevent us from seeing/preventing future problems with cryptocurrency. My question to you is what can be done about this increased tribalism? On a platform such as Facebook it is as simple as changing what material a user is exposed to. What can be the solution to such a big problem?

Because there is definitely no easy answer.

-Rockie1234

[squatter]

Echo chamber - an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered.

For a long time now (and particularly since the big crash after $20k), I've noticed how unhealthy a lot our cryptocommunities are. Bitcointalk in this regard is not the worst offender, but recently someone replied to a post of mine saying how a lot of their beliefs in cryptocurrency were just parroting without any real thought or research.

This phenomenon is a hundred times worse on individual coin/token communities. One observation I have made is the more obscure and unlikely to succeed a coin is (provided it is not a scam), the more fanatically users believe in its success. Whether this is self-deceptive rationalisation after seeing the price of their coin plummet or plain delusion I don't know.

This is financial bias at work. People are hyping up their holdings -- partly to convince others to buy, and partly to convince themselves to keep holding through huge losses.

Communal reinforcement in this way is incredibly dangerous, and could prevent us from seeing/preventing future problems with cryptocurrency. My question to you is what can be done about this increased tribalism? On a platform such as Facebook it is as simple as changing what material a user is exposed to. What can be the solution to such a big problem?

Cryptocurrency is novel in the respect that users are inherently investors. I don't think there's an easy solution to this problem. You can see similar behavior in the Yahoo Finance boards with people shilling the penny stocks they own.

[figmentofmyass]

This phenomenon is a hundred times worse on individual coin/token communities. One observation I have made is the more obscure and unlikely to succeed a coin is (provided it is not a scam), the more fanatically users believe in its success. Whether this is self-deceptive rationalisation after seeing the price of their coin plummet or plain delusion I don't know. To give an example, I recently came across a 3 year old coin with 0 volume, who have almost nothing to offer, yet users were unironically talking about a "10 trillion marketcap" within 5 years.

Communal reinforcement in this way is incredibly dangerous, and could prevent us from seeing/preventing future problems with cryptocurrency. My question to you is what can be done about this increased tribalism? On a platform such as Facebook it is as simple as changing what material a user is exposed to. What can be the solution to such a big problem?

there's nothing to be done. greed and bias is an inevitable part of financial speculation, and you can't separate cryptocurrencies from financial speculation. even the most robust and promising projects (like bitcoin) have their share of get-rich-quick speculators who don't care about or understand the technology and its limitations.

the market will sort things out and eventually cast bad investments off into obscurity. it always does. and lots of financial losers will be (and have been) created. some shitcoin investors just cling to their delusions longer than others.

[hatshepsut93]

You can't have equal amounts of all opinions, and it's an echo chamber when one opinion dominates - echo chamber is when all other opinions are removed and when the members of echo chamber start losing their grip on reality and start believing in fakes and trying to fit everything into their narrative.

I really don't think that this forum has a serious echo chamber problem - no one here gets banned for contradicting opinion, there are people who've been spreading FUD against Bitcoin for years without getting banned. Many people here (myself including) are critical of various aspects of Bitcoin while still overall supporting Bitcoin. From what I see, newbies are most likely to form echo chamber, they often talk in cliches that they hear from news sites and other members, but generally people tend to form their own opinions after spending here a few years.

[Rockie1234]

You can't have equal amounts of all opinions, and it's an echo chamber when one opinion dominates - echo chamber is when all other opinions are removed and when the members of echo chamber start losing their grip on reality and start believing in fakes and trying to fit everything into their narrative.

I really don't think that this forum has a serious echo chamber problem - no one here gets banned for contradicting opinion, there are people who've been spreading FUD against Bitcoin for years without getting banned. Many people here (myself including) are critical of various aspects of Bitcoin while still overall supporting Bitcoin. From what I see, newbies are most likely to form echo chamber, they often talk in cliches that they hear from news sites and other members, but generally people tend to form their own opinions after spending here a few years.

You are right about this website, we have a lot of experienced users here. But there are so many individual coin communities that are definitely deluding themselves. It is true however that greed will always be a part of it and I guess the only way forward is better education via good resources/information that means newer investors know what to avoid etc.

[eternalgloom]

You're absolutely right and I've noticed this as well. Not only within discussion boards of particular coins, mind you.
If you look at some of the more general Reddit cryptocurrency communities, you can clearly see that there's some kind of hive-mind at work.

/r/cryptocurrency is a great example of that, they clearly have their favourites and any straying away from those favourites is instantly met with downvotes or negative commentary.

[Red-Apple]

unfortunately i don't think there is anything we can do about it. most of these parrots don't care what they are repeating as long as they think there is a chance that their repetition can lead to the pump of the garbage they are holding and can give them profit.
looking at the altcoin board 90% of the posts are just hyping something up ignoring all the issues the coin has. the bigger the market cap of it, the bigger the number of bag holders that are parroting things back at you.
the only solution is to prevent pump and dumps from existing!