How is bitcoin maximalism presently taken by everyone in bitcointalk?
New policy: I present myself as a fearsome “Bitcoin maxi” to altcoiners, and I chat about my favourite altcoins to Bitcoiners. Thus, I can discover who my true friends are. This optimizes for the human element. So does intransigent opposition to scams.
I have been intending to write an essay with my own take on Bitcoin maximalism, but I am not sure if this forum is the right place to publish it.
You should write and publish it in the forum, I reckon. I would also like to know your opinion on some bitcoin maximalists who appear to want everyone to believe that there is only bitcoin and bitcoin's failure will be the whole cryptospace's failure without any other cryptocoin having to find and achieve success.
Thanks. Unfortunately, I will need to cut short what I was writing here—if I ever want to post this.
:-)To answer that, we first must define “success”. Is economic success the sole criterion? Although that is important, I think that economic success is
necessary but insufficient.
Bitcoin is
freedom-money. It is
authentic cypherpunk-money. It grew organically as
a social phenomenon, in historical circumstances that cannot be artifically duplicated.
If Bitcoin were to fail, I think that “the whole cryptospace” would
almost inevitably fail in the way that really matters.
I say this when I own altcoins, and I much like some altcoins: If Bitcoin were to fail, then any
independent altcoin would
almost inevitably fail economically. Bitcoin makes the cryptocurrency market.
If Bitcoin were to fail, I predict that the only “altcoins” that could still succeed would be those backed by massive capital from big banks and VCs. But those are not legitimate “crypto” in the sense of cypherpunk-money. Those are merely
de facto centralized Fintech payment systems that use some cryptography, and that sell themselves under a veneer of fake “decentralization”. Some are better in this aspect, some are worse—all of them devolve over time in the direction of giving big banks and insider whales the power that Bitcoin takes away from them. Worst in this aspect is anything POS, a definitional plutocracy.
Thus, although I disagree with the “maximalist” purity-testing that treats people as sinners for (gasp!) touching a forbidden altcoin, I agree with the proposition that “Bitcoin’s failure will be the whole cryptospace’s failure without any other cryptocoin having to find and achieve success.” Like it or not. That is the reality.
I love Bitcoin. I love it as if it were a living creature. And I recognize on pragmatic grounds that attempting to replace it would be a fool’s errand, likely resulting in a Pyrrhic victory
at best. Accordingly, I am proud when altcoiners call me a “Bitcoin maxi”; and I tend to agree with them about that. I say that when I own altcoins, I think that defi has great potential (excluding such garbage as Yield Farming, a classic HYIP scam), and I have some history on this forum of defending the good uses of NFTs. (Not Bored Ape trash. The basic idea now called “NFTs” is much older, and it has much undiscovered potential for future applications.) There are multiple reasons why my signature or personal text has said since 2017: “There is only one Bitcoin.”
Am I a Bitcoin maximalist?
I also want to hear your opinion on the comments of people similar to Max Keisler who said in an interview that all fiat will be going to zero against bitcoin. Is this right?
I don’t follow the opinions of these types of pundits, so I can’t comment other than to say that
[0] I think that it is very, very unlikely that
all fiat currencies will go to zero
against Bitcoin in the type of total “hyperbitcoinization” scenario that some Bitcoiners predict; and,
[1] whenever fiat currencies crash, as not infrequently occurs, people
need an escape hatch—a currency that is not controlled by corrupt governments and corrupt central banks.
Bitcoin was created to be such a thing. See the headline in the Genesis Block.
3.
Bitcoin arose in an historical context that must not be forgotten. Most people have short memories; and some people are young. Those who remember the 2008 global financial crisis will better understand Bitcoin and its economic design.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block#Coinbase
It has happened before. It has happened many times. It will happen again.
The Great CollapseI also want to hear your opinion on the comments of people similar to Max Keisler who said in an interview that all fiat will be going to zero against bitcoin. Is this right?
Completely unrealistic in the developed Western world. I know it's fashionable to peddle an impending collapse of economy, but the govts. simply don't allow that to happen.
Governments are not gods. They cannot magically stop economies from collapsing. The smaller big question is when the petrodollar scam will collapse. The bigger big question is whether or not that will be a part of a catastrophic global collapse.
I know it’s fashionable to peddle the “this is fine!” belief that governments can prevent a catastrophic global collapse of civilization; but history shows that civilizations
do collapse, inevitably so when they are infected by even the tiniest bit of today’s all-consuming rot. I have remarked before on this forum that around A.D. 350–400, Romans must have believed that their civilization was invincible.
Only a knowledge of the mere past century, the blink of an historical eye, is needed to know that major economic collapses do happen. Whereas only myopia, short time horizons, and a lack of historical education could lead anyone to believe that a
civilizational collapse can’t happen here and now.
Today’s global economic system is altogether the biggest scam in the history of the world. Its eventual collapse has been assured since the 1970s, at the latest. And a technological, industrial civilization cannot reasonably expect to survive a catastrophic economic implosion. The question is not “if”, but
when? Many commentators discredit themselve by mispredicting the “when?”—a question that no one can reasonably answer.
This does not necessarily mean that when some fiat currencies collapse, Bitcoin will just replace them. To presume as much is a simplistic leap of logic in attempting to predict the outcomes of a complex scenario. I think it’s more likely that as long as technical civilization exists, there will be a competition of currencies—and when this rotten civilization finally collapses in total, Bitcoin will not exist, because computers and the Internet will not exist.
N.b. that I have always consistently said this:
I do think that the collapse is nigh inevitable, barring a drastic,
radical global change that has negligible chance of actually happening.
[...]
This—
n.b. the date before Covid, when exuberant faith in ever-increasing prosperity was more fashionable:[...]
By comparison, Roman society was a zombified rotting corpse for four or five centuries before the civil machine built by long-gone forebears ran out of momentum. I can see how greater technology could have accelerated the ultimate downfall in various ways.
What’s left is to secure yourself, take care of your own, live by honour alone whereas law is meaningless, keep busy with something productive, and try to have some fun.
[...]
I believe nullius has a more optimistic view of the future than I do.
— Spengler (writing most of a hundred years ago)
