Dear Crypto Natives,
Can I just say I love Bitcoin? I own it. I use it. It was the project that made me fall in love with crypto. I am a Bitcoiner.
And I’ve learned a tremendous amount from other Bitcoiners. About the nature of money. About constraints and tradeoffs. Bitcoiners have changed the world.
Oh, I also love Baby Boomers. My parents are Boomers.
But some Bitcoiners, like some Boomers, earn a collective eye roll.
An “ok bitcoiner” response.
When?
When they ignore open finance progress just because it’s not Bitcoin. When they’re not living their stated values. When they criticize without taking the time to learn. When they’re memeing rhetoric instead of engaging. When they claim everything besides Bitcoin is a scam.
No, not all other crypto projects are scams.
Yes, Ethereum is also based on Austrian economics.
Yes, it’s possible to run a full ETH node even if you’re barely motivated.
Yes, other crypto assets besides Bitcoin can exhibit monetary premium.
And yes, both BTC and ETH are tools for economic freedom.
I have no problem with Bitcoiners preferring Bitcoin and giving it their primary attention. And no, I don’t think all crypto projects are equal—many are scams, not all founders operate in good faith—and I’m equally disturbed by crypto relativism. (Thanks for helping to call out the bad actors!)
But Bitcoiners, why so close mined? There’s much outside Bitcoin I think you’d like.
A project like Uniswap means exchange can be a public utility like the internet. Dai is crypto money helping citizens in Argentina escape hyper inflation and capital controls—it can even be backed by BTC—transparently auditable, Hayekian private money. Yes, price oracles aren’t perfect yet but surely you prefer Dai to USDT?
If you still want to focus on Bitcoin, awesome. I think you’re missing something bigger in the fight for self-sovereign money but that’s fine, maybe we’ll prove it to you in time.
But saying Dai is impossibly complicated without making any effort to learn or that ETH is worse than a pure scam project?
I can muster only one response:
ok bitcoiner.
And I say it out of love for Bitcoin.
- RSA
P.S. shout-out to the many Bitcoiners in this space who regularly escape the meme bubble and objectively evaluate non-BTC projects—Hasu and Nic Carter are among my faves