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Is Bitcoin’s toxic maximalism becoming less toxic?
Next month, the Bitcoin network will undergo its fourth halving since its launch in 2009. In honor of that occasion, CoinDesk will release a month-long editorial package covering everything from Bitcoin’s evolving cultural scene to the technical advances planned today.
This article is part of CoinDesk’s “Future of Bitcoin” package published in conjunction with Bitcoin’s fourth “halving” in April 2024. It was previously published in The Node newsletter, a daily roundup of the most crucial crypto news on CoinDesk and beyond . You can sign up to get the full service newsletter here.
There’s a lot happening at once in the land of Bitcoin these days. Following the launch of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) on the spot market in the United States, the price of bitcoin has skyrocketed, regularly setting new all-time highs. Some of the world’s most influential figures, from former President Donald Trump to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, have recently praised cryptocurrencies. Banks are building ways to give their customers exposure to the currency.
Perhaps the most significant change, however, has been the cultural shift around the first and largest cryptocurrency. For years, Bitcoin culture has been dominated by the giant Bitcoinswhich when worn as a badge of honor as insiders it means they believe Bitcoin is the only blockchain worth building, but it’s also a pejorative to say someone has a toxic attachment to bitcoin.
However, is it too much to say that these hard money fans are getting a little… weakening? Self “the class of Bitcoin 2021” used to be dominated by big laser eyes that only ate beef and attacked people on Twitter, today it seems that Bitcoin is much less aggressive.
I’m not the only one who senses the change in atmosphere. In a recent interview with Stacks creator Muneeb Ali, he mentioned that he received much less hate on X. Although he is a Bitcoin maximalist, meaning that Ali thinks that any other cryptocurrency could be imported into Bitcoin and that BTC is a superior coin, Ali has spent the last decade as a blockchain developer essentially being harassed by his peers for launching an altcoin .
“Honestly, it’s getting a lot better. Before there were the dark ages of Bitcoin,” Ali said in a recent phone interview. “Things are getting a lot better because new builders are coming in and new tools are being built. There is enthusiasm in the builder community.”
Ali is referring to the explosion of activity on Bitcoin since Casey Rodarmor launched the Ordinals protocol, which opened the door to “inscribing” NFT-like data on Bitcoin and inspired a number of other innovative ideas to try.
Mind you, not everyone is happy about this. Ever since Casey Rodarmor launched the Ordinals protocol, there has also been a furious debate within the Bitcoin community about what exactly Bitcoin is For. The debate is essentially between two ideological camps, monetary cryptocurrency versus technological cryptocurrency (to bastardize a term coined by CoinDesk contributor and ConsenSys attorney Bill Hughes).
To find out where you fall on the spectrum, ask yourself if Bitcoin is only ever “savings technology,” a hard monetary solution to ever-inflating fiat currency? Or is it also a platform for creating fun or useful applications? For years, Bitcoin culture was dominated by the former, in part because there wasn’t much that could be done with Bitcoin.
“Money Bitcoin” people are the ones today who complain about things like Bitcoin-based NFTs and BRC-20 tokens “clogging up the network.” Every day it becomes harder and harder to tell whether they are the loudest or most influential voices in the room. That’s because fighting technological innovation is an uphill battle (and a bit hypocritical, considering the Bitcoin network was designed not to discriminate against anyone, regardless of how you use it).
To be fair, there is nothing necessarily wrong with taking the position that bitcoin’s first and primary goal should be the creation of a new monetary paradigm. But there is something crude about telling people to “have fun while being poor” or to “have fun.” “stay toxic.”
It’s normal to feel this bitcoiners have developed a hard shell (to keep it political) in response to criticism received from non-incumbents over the years. Having repeatedly been proven right (at least in terms of price) probably also helped foster a greater sense of smug self-satisfaction. There’s also the fact that, until recently, bitcoin adoption was actually a bit countercultural, a way of “giving up.”
“The original Bitcoin culture was a synthesis of determined cypherpunk and thoughtful libertarianism. It was inspired by previous movements, certainly, but this combination was completely ex nihilo, a one-generation cultural event,” said cryptocurrency researcher Paul Dylan-Ennis. he wrote in 2022.
May it continue to evolve.