Topic: An article on how to be a Bitcoin maximalist (Read 641 times)

I doubt that I was pandering to anyone.  I used words to attempt to describe what I perceive to be your framework in bitcoin, and I am not even saying that you cannot be a bitcoiner or a maximalist with your perspective of how you believe bitcoin best works for you, in terms of attempting to stick with legacy wallets and various practices in which you seem to be shunning current bitcoin developments (such as lightning network seems to be a segwit related set of practices, no?).

I don't claim to be technical, so of course, some of your technical perspectives may well inform an approach that you believe to be superior..... yet wouldn't we be deviating from this topic if we go into very much of those discussions here?


I was around during that time, and my framing of the matter is different from yours, at least in the sense that in 2017 part of the efforts were to attack bitcoin's then governance in order to make it easier to change bitcoin.. I doubt that bitcoin has become more centralized as a response, but surely when some aspects of bitcoin were being attacked then there are likely responses and even ideas that carry into the future to attempt to cause bitcoin to be less vulnerable... and so if you are not confident in how bitcoin's governance or lack of governance is evolving, then you may well lose confidence in bitcoin, too, no?


Yes.. so stop trying to suggest that I am motivated by loyalism.


I disagree, but I do have some history in the ways that I present myself - and largely I try to not get caught up in certain political and/or governance arguments, even though sometimes I do come across such threads and such discussions... and yes, to bring the matter back to this thread, I recall that Rizzo was very much part of the BIG Blocker nutjobs.. but he seems to have come around.. but he still has some of the BIG blocker nutjob tendencies in terms of his seeming to suggest how bitcoiners should think about maximalism. .as if it were to be better if bitcoiners had a kind of unified front in terms of being good builders...


I see no reason to go down this line of discussion unless you are somehow relating the topic to the thread.  You are suggesting bitcoin to be broken in various ways since 2017, and from my perspective, I see ongoing growth in bitcoin since 2017.... and surely some of the wallets, and usages of the second layer solutions, such as the lightning network continue to be developed, too.  You can choose not to get involved in using those aspects of bitcoin.. sure. there are some complications with user-friendliness and even under-the-hood technical matters that I am not going to claim to know or even consider to be directly relevant to this thread.


That would be dumb.  Fuck POS.


You are going on quite the tangent....  We had Taproot go through recently, and surely some other small changes have taken place in bitcoin's code.  I don't claim to follow every change or proposal or to even understand the ramifications to each of these matters, even though from time to time, I do run across some of the various discussions of what kinds of code changes that are being proposed or some developments that might be being built here and there along the way.


My view of how that played out is different from yours, and sure I understand the various underlying facts because I was there and I was actively involved in this forum during that time, too.


There are a variety of ways that people can be involved in bitcoin and consider themselves to be bitcoin maximalists.  They do not necessarily need to subscribe to the franky1 school of thought regarding what is a proper bitcoin maximalist, and you surely seem to be describing some kind of disgruntled historical view of bitcoin, and even if you do not like to be called a big blocker, you surely are anti-segwit - which is also part of where bitcoin currently is.. even though bitcoin's backwards compatibility allows you to have some use cases that seem to have narrow views of bitcoin that are not in touch with current practices of a lot of folks.. which to me, based on your framings in your post, it seems that you are fighting a battle about water that has already gone under the bridge.


Why not both?  We can accumulate coins and choose to get involved in understanding whether and how our bitcoin's are protected. There are other things that we can do too, and still be involved in bitcoin and even call ourselves a bitcoin maximalist, if we so choose.

by you pandering to certain social clan buzzwords of 2017 to some bitcoiners as  oppositions to bitcoin. is you trying to be a fool of those social drama clan war games where groups think that certain people should not be bitcoiners.

that social drama game ended, by centralising parts of the network towards one central group
(central points of failure are bad for the network)

a bitcoin maximalist cares more about not having central points of failure, rather than clan loyalisms. .
by how you coment and present yourself in this forum, it seems you are a clan loyalist not a bitcoin maximalist

my mindset is clear..
i care more for the protocol than i do for the human developers that can mess with the protocol... and have! bypassed consensus for their own sponsor paid features they preferred which 5 years after 2017 are not even finished, nor multiplied utility by even 1.#x of numbers mentioned in 2010

EG
imagine the 2017 change was not segwit. but instead a change to PoS..
where the same NY agreement(DCG partners) of economic nodes decided that they will declare PoS flagged blocks as BTC and reject any PoW blocks as of august 2017

imagine blockstream(DCG) paid devs coded the mandatory fork for that period..
would you be soo willing to be loyal to the crew that enforced the activation by splitting the network

yep many of DCG businesses are regulated. so if DCG want to stay in operation and make profit and if regulators decide that they prefer PoS.. guess what could actually happen..

consensus is about:  agreement =activation.
not splitting network to fake 100% vote of remainers

if another NY agreement and blockstream sponsored core code release of a preferred change happened again.. guess what would happen(ill leave you to answer that)

you want to play buzzword games of "big blockers" but none of 2017 was about massive blocks, even the 'bloq(DCG) segwit+2mb supposed compromise was just another ploy to get segwit 2017 cludgy unfinished code activated outside of proper consensus rules

a BITCOIN maximalist cares about the bitcoin protocol. not some brand, not some dev team, not some side business/service, not some other network that some dev team want to offramp people to.. but actual UTILITY of the bitcoin network

its not about coin accumulation(just keep buying) that makes someone a maximalist. its about wanting to protect their accumulation by staying strong and calling out things that can threaten their value

What I thought that I was doing was responding to a point that you made in regards to value.  Initially, I thought that I agreed with you, but as we had a couple of exchanges, for the reasons that I already stated, it appears that I do not agree with you as much as I initially thought that I did.

So I am not trying to change any kind of discussion because this thread is about Pete Rizzo's article and his views on what a Bitcoin Maximalist should be - so the value discussion, so far ends up being a tangent to the thread's subject matter.



Yes, and I already responded to your point. .It seems that we disagree, and I already made my points about that, to the extent that I had any points.


I am glad that you are embracing the idea of BTC accumulation - and for sure each of us needs to figure out how much BTC that we want to accumulate based on our individual circumstances, which surely would include considering how many BTC we may have already accumulated and if we have gotten through BTC accumulation, then our thoughts might be different if we are in maintenance stage or even liquidation stages.. but sure view of value versus price could also be considered no matter which stage we perceive ourselves to be in.

For me, I had done my initial BTC accumulation mostly between 2014 and 2015 but I still had some continuing accumulation in 2016 and early 2017, and it seems that I felt that I transitioned mostly into a kind of maintenance stage since about mid-2017... and so surely I have my ways of dealing with my ideas and practices regarding how to maintain my BTC portfolio.. which largely attempts to maintain some levels of price agnostics contained therein.. even though I am working on some formulas for also transitioning into a kind of living on bitcoin (and/or funding projects) that are likely to have formulas that for now spring off of the 200-week moving average in terms of assessing BTC valuations and possible authorizations to sell. so that would be more getting into liquidation stages, even though I am not quite feeling like I am quite yet getting into practices related to such a stage.. still considering myself as being in a kind of maintenance stage, overall..


Perhaps the franky1 version of bitcoin maximalism that appears on its face to be a big blocker nutjob bullshit anti-segwit baloney, but maybe you have your reasons for such (as you just summarized)... and if it works for you so far, then so be it.  To each his own, no?


That seems to be called NGU technology, and surely so far it appears that the longer that any of us have been in bitcoin, then the more likely we are going to been able to do relatively well compared to any other assets that we might have invested into so long as we largely accumulated BTC early on and mostly continued to hold or maintain our BTC holdings with the passage of time.  We can also have all kinds of views about what brings bitcoin its value or our how we perceive our future allocations into BTC to play out, and there's no real evidence that bitcoin is losing any of its foundational values - even if we might assess foundational (fundamental) values in different ways.

what you are trying to attempt to do is change this into a discussion about the differences between
individuals values
(the plural of sentiment speculation and variation of emotion and desire)
vs
bitcoin store of value
(a measurement)
..
peoples values(the plural) are subjective and individual

legegendaryK and windfury. were discussing "store of value" and confusing it with market price

i was clarifying the store of value number is different to the market price number

my personal threshold is the $50k line where below that i deem it "cheap"
im happy to buy at anything below $50k
(i already have hoards from as far back as 2012 so dont NEED to buy. .. but while its deemed cheap why the hell not stock up some more.. no point holding onto spare fiat that loses value)

my values(plural sentiment), are that i want bitcoin for its functions, its utility and benefits to me. which are many
i know the code. and i trust and use the legacy addresses. and that is my personal choice. though i do not like certain devs changes to certain features. of new tx formats that are cludgy and unfinished. i personally trust my value on a legacy address as i can see that the legacy tx format code of validation and verification still fully work.

as for the store of value.
bitcoins store of value for my personal batches of hoards over the years are protecting my wealth very very very well at different levels. but all are more so than other assets/mediums of exchange ever has or will

and thats why i am a maximalist

You are describing a way to place a supposed objective value on bitcoin that seems to be based on mining costs (costs of production) and trying to take out the people aspect to it, which is a bit detached from reality (even though you surely have rights to do that).

Of course, you have also not accounted for future value that you believe are based on subjective value and expectations of future value that can affect present value?  You are too busy trying to negate the counting of people as if the world really works like that.. as if you really are going to be capable of figuring out actual costs without accounting for subjective value. 

And, yes there are actual mining costs, but there are also miners who speculate on bitcoin and even will mine at a loss.. and there is also changes in costs and changes in perceptions about whether costs will change that will cause changes in mining efforts too.

I thought that I agreed with your earlier post, but since you are devolving into too much attempts at what you believe is pure objective value (that does not exist as much as you like to believe it does), maybe I don't agree as much as I had previously thought?

Even if there might be some ways of valuing bitcoin (and/or any other thing) in more credible ways, I have my doubts that there is any meaningful way to proclaim value - even if you are trying to assess what you believe to be objective values.. while excluding subjective perceptions of value (even if subjective value is not the only contributor to value - whether bitcoin or some other asset).

I guess my point is that both objective and subjective value needs to be accounted, even if your aspirations to remove subjective value can be a good thought exercise (that is decently detached from reality because it ends up being an extreme in its own right). Objective value ends up being selective in its own right because it is suggesting itself to be excluding one of the main components of value, even if subjective value is not the ONLY thing that contributes towards value, but it is a decently good-sized components that have a lot of angles to it and a lot of indirectness too in the sense that it is everywhere even embedded within your purported proclamations of objective value, too..

PEOPLES(individual) values (note plural. for personal sentiments) are different
to bitcoins value

EG live in germany, japan, hawaii.. mining costs are at $0.40 electric rate that converts to a btc mining cost of $90k($78k-$90k hardware variable)
so if the market rate is cheaper than their mining rate then its cheaper and thus great VALUE for THEM

however if you were to put all the different acquisition costs of individuals ability to get bitcoin today onto a chart (like a scatter chart of everyone as a dot per person

you will see a blank void below ~$15k..
and this is the underlying BITCOIN value for the planet.
its NOT individuals speculative "value" personally to them looking towards bitcoin
but IS the value of bitcoin from the prospective of bitcoin looking towards the people as what no one can get below

EG im in the UK my residential electric is £0.20($0.23)kwh
which is about $50k on most efficient asic
so me personally was happy to buy at $30k and $20k as its cheaper then buying a miner and mining for a long while to get a few btc, as it costs more that way

but separately from that. knowing the BITCOIN SoV is ~$15k for whole planet underlying cost no one can reach.
thats a good 50% 75% Sov of those buys

however someone in [cheapest region] that can mine at $15k is preferring to mine as their SoV is 133%
for every $15k they put in they can sell it for $20k right now

Overall, I am not really disagreeing with the various points that you are outlining franky, and it is likely true that there is a kind of concrete bitcoin value that does not necessarily match up with BTC price, and we are also less likely to be able to figure out BTC value during high price spikes in either direction.  At the same time, there are a variety of ways to attempt to measure value, so there is likely rarely agreement on actual value, and so frequently the battle over BTC price will be battles in regards to what is the true value so disagreements about whether the current BTC spot price is higher or lower than actual value.

Some people will also recognize that value cannot be accurately assessed or attained, and therefore will assert that the best approximation of value is the spot price.

Pete Rizzo is a decently smart guy, and he even chimes into the forum from time to time, and he even admitted his mistake of siding somewhat heavily with the BIG blockers - and even though frequently he does make a lot of decent moralizing points - including in the articles when he is suggesting that maximalists should have more moral integrity in terms of promoting positive building approaches rather than destructive approaches, we should also recognize that there remains a bit of a tension to be suggesting a kind of standard because ultimately bitcoin is for everyone (including enemies), so there's a bit of unrealism to expect bitcoiners to have standards and morals - because the world is not made of such pure people even if there's nothing really wrong with people having good aspirations (and there is nothing wrong with throwing out some thought exercises in that direction, either) - but each of us still needs to be careful in terms of either communicating and/or practicing good aspirations, since sometimes those good aspirations can also be used as attack vectors.

the PRICE. is not the value

the PRICE is the premium speculation above value

value is at the bottom
here ill show you
(numbers aren't exact. they're rounded for easy visualisation. dont knitpick)

year  |   value            |    price low   |    price high    
2010      $0.06               $0.07             $0.27
2012      $4.00               $4.30             $15.00
2014      $150.00           $310.00          $920.00
2016      $300.00           $380.00          $960.00
2018      $2500.00         $3200.00        $17500.00
2020      $4500.00         $5100.00        $29000.00
2022      $14000.00       $19000.00      $48000.00

no one on the planet! can buy/acquire bitcoin below value amount in those years
which then protects that amount as a store of value, because no one can/has broke that wall amount. thus gives it a store of value protection due to lack of ability to break that wall

you will not find the "value" on a bitcoin market. it sits below/off the market rate
its a separate statistic

when the PRICE is low. its at/near good value
when the price is high its at a premium

if you want to secure more of your wealth at good store of value
buy the low. buy while cheap.

if you are buying bitcoin at the premium/ATH.. then be prepared to lose some of your wealth when the ATH corrects.. or wait patiently for the SoV to move up to then protect your wealth more (have patience)

VALUE is not the ATH which then crashes..
the ATH does not represent value or a stable price that bitcoin should remain.
ATH are temporary spikes of speculations(bubbles above the bath water)

invest in the times of calm water, not waves of bubbles

each cycle the water level(value) rises. the store of value rises.. but not to the same speed volatility, variability as the waves and bubbles move up and down above the water line

Bitcoin maximalism is also a bit of a misnomer, as Bitcoin is not the first project to build a decentralized cryptocurrency. That said, this is the most successful attempt so far, fueling Bitcoin maximalists' beliefs about how Bitcoin will offer everything investors, companies and everyday users need. It is the digital currency of the future capable of monopolizing the future cryptocurrency industry. That might seem impossible on paper and a rather toxic attitude towards cryptocurrencies, although Bitcoin's maximalism is a bit more nuanced.

Trolls trying to discourage newbies, and people in general to use Bitcoin, and HODL it as a Store of Value. They will say that because it's volatile, therefore it can't be used as a Store of Value. But what's the definition of Store of Value? Isn't it an asset, commodity, or a currency that can hold and maintain its value over long periods of time? Bitcoin not a Store of Value?

ZOOM OUT.

Bitcoin will be around until we die.

That is the easiest in all senses, there are people who have money left over from their salary and then do not know what they can spend it on, the best thing is to buy fractions of bitcoin and save them, but it is very difficult for people to take that habit that can make millionaires, I like your steps, they are the easiest, and if so, I think I am a maximilist too, I was in altcoin projects in 2017, then I was inactive, especially to get my career, since I got it and I'm working, I like all this, I know I missed a lot of things in all those years, but I think it's not too late to do something, whoever buys right now can do great things when bitcoin goes up in price a lot.

Store of Values don't drop from $60K to $19K in ~1 year.

Dumpster Fires do drop like that.  
Que the Marsh Mellows.  

FYI:
How to be a Bitcoin maximalist.
Drop your IQ below 100.
Ignore the dying of Proof of Waste security model.
Pretend 4 mining pool operators are decentralized.
Pretend the Government PoW Ban warnings are fud.
Power Rationing is FUD. Energy Price are not increasing.
Pretend a 3rd party offchain system is Bitcoin.
All other coins are shitcoin, even thru they are technically more advanced than BTC.

Whenever confronted with the facts BTC is subpar compared to all other coins in onchain transactions capacity and price,
scream decentralized to the maximum that your lungs allow.

That about sums it up, the very last thing , is utterly ignore all the reality that is apparent to anyone not a  Bitcoin maximalist.  



 

You're right, there IS NOTHING WRONG with it. If Bitcoin only does one thing, a Store of Value, we truly know that it does that one thing the best. Let Bitcoin be Bitcoin, and let it be the best in what it can do without fault-finding and name-calling. If you want a cryptocurrency with a Turing Complete system, buy Ethereum. If you want a cryptocurrency with big blocks because you believe that it's Peer to Peer cash, buy Bitcoin Cash. Simple.

Exactly this is the point why these coins are seeing pumps in the market running on fake claims and whales manipulation only but those who sees they missed the btc opportunity can take this as an advantage invest in these shitcoins losing all the money.There are articles over net that this coin can be next btc bull run so you see how they use bitcoin as a advantage to make people fool and then silently exit the market with rug pull so never believe in them blindly.

That's the main problem, you see things and value them based on the fiat profit they can give you while I see things and value them based on their utility.

Otherwise if we only care about "how much money we can make" then all projects ever created, even those that everyone considers to be scams, become "good" projects. I have definitely made profit from shitcoins. In fact a couple of years ago I wrote an app to trade on some shitty exchange focusing on pure shitcoins and ended up turning 0.00001 into 0.4 bitcoin. But that doesn't mean I like any of those shitcoins just because I made some money from their pump and dumps or consider them "good". I also never bag hold any of them wishing they to go up.

Until now the most recommended investment in the crypto space is no other than bitcoins rather than those thousands of coins listed in the coin market. It's just simply because of its past history where when it falls it will recover so at the end of the day, investors don't lose their money, they just need some legit patience to wait and to ignore the critics, or else they will gonna suffer some doubt and uncertainty which will lead them to sell their BTC at a lower price. Old investors don't really care about the situation of the market when it's not looking good, they will just chill and wait for it to recover.

We need to understand nothing happen overnight, Bitcoin took 13 years to establish itself. Once Bitcoin happened a lot of new projects came up. A lot of which were actually scam. We need a legitimate cryptospace with minimum junk. There is a need of self regulations that's why many of old timers stay with Bitcoin and no nonsense blockchains

Also, for anyone who really read the article, I reckon Pete Rizzo is desperate to convince the readers that the limitations of bitcoin are only short term in this statement.

they believe that these crypto assets and services are profiting off the short-term limitations of Bitcoin,

However in the same article he mentioned a commitment to slow software changes.

3. A Commitment to Slow Software Changes and Enfranchising Users

This appears for me as a request for everyone to be patient for updates that might never arrive. There is nothing wrong with this. Bitcoin should continue being a store of value if the community and the developers want it and leave the other developments, experimentations and scams to other projects.

I do not think that you need to dislike other coins to be a bitcoin maximalist these days. I love bitcoin and hold most of my investments there and do not have any other investment bigger than bitcoin. And yet I would love other coins to go up, I love ETH too, and even if I do not own a token, I want all of them to go up.

It is good for the market and hence good for me as well as a bitcoin holder if everything goes up including shitcoins, but aside from that I would love to see everyone make money, what harm could it done? I want everyone to profit, that is a good thing. So, you can be a bitcoin maximalist AND be a crypto maximalist at the same time without a trouble.

But yet you teach newbies that Bitcoin "split" into two, "Bitcoin Core" and "Bitcoin Cash", and you always suggested that the "real Bitcoin" is the one that maintains "Peer to peer electronic cash" through having cheap onchain fees and bigger blocks.


That's just an opinion/accusation of yours. I believe the Core developers are the rightful stewards of the network.


OK, then are you open to the fact that there are developers who are learning, researching and developing another system called the Lightning Network?

Here is NotATether's Easy 3-Step Guide For Becoming a Bitcoin Maximalist:

1. Buy bitcoins or earn them (do not use faucets). Do not sell unless necessary.
2. Only buy as little amount of altcoins as is absolutely necessary for you.
3. Support the Bitcoin community during moments of solidarity.

That's it. It's not that hard to become a maximalist. I don't understand why people have to make it so complicated.

It's way of thinking, of progression thus at the end of the day there is no way to find out how and when the thinking will change, some people need the ' Learning ' they usually make loads of mistake and at the end they do tend to understand the spectrum of cryptocurrencies that are in the Market, shitcoins are undeniably increasing day by day and they are becoming the key to gaining profits for the wallets since they have considerable amount of change in the buying/selling prices and thus at the end of the day, all the wallets are even burdened with shitcoins as well, for a newbie it would be hard to navigate thus this is where platforms like this can help loads. Helping people navigate through the crypto market would be plenty helpful, bitcoins is more or so the major crypto one needs to focus on.

I have to say as a person who has been involved in crypto one way or another for the past 10 years give or take, I can easily say that the best way to be a maximalist of bitcoin is not to just see the future of bitcoin and how "bright" it is, but to see fiat world and all the other alternatives to crypto and realizing how terrible it is.

As long as you have that, you are not going to really end up with something like that profiting you, all the other options sucks, and you are stuck with bitcoin. Bitcoin could be better of course, there are things I would improve with bitcoin too, but all others are so and that bitcoin looks like the best thing ever.

you mean like lock bitcoin up into a contract with a middleman. and then use a different balance measure on another network..
bitcoin sat:msat LN  (bitcoin does not understand 11 decimals.. just saying. but thanks for the admission.. )

bitcoins never leaves the bitcoin network. thats the beauty and security of bitcoin.

it seems today you are ready to escape the cultish tribe of your offramp agenda group..
maybe you can start promoting onchain scaling growth and utility growth,

lets see how long your non-cultish posts(only seen in recent hours) lasts before rejoining the defensive hostile narrative of the last few years, of preferring to support the DCG products, rather than support/protect the bitcoin protocol from centralisation of control groups

..
i have no problem with bitcoin being a commodity(raw item used to make other items)
EG bitcoin as (analogy: gold) store of value to make products/technologies backed by it like a bitcoin NFT
as long as people make things risk aware that those subnets are not bitcoin but backed/pegged to bitcoin. and ofcourse those networks are not half made and flawed(bridge/peg easily breakable, etc), like some current bridged/pegged networks

The core of the idea is to be hard money. If some people want to extend the idea, no problem. But if to utilize their implementation, I need to hand over bitcoin, and acquire a currency that doesn't have the same recognition, it's already a big no.

Or just altering monetary policies is attractive for the developers' pockets.

My point is that cryptocurrencies that give solutions to different problems aren't adopted by most merchants, and therefore users can't gain those benefits, whereas bitcoin is.

avoiding debates from the younger crowd posting previously in this topic, that pretend they know whats best.. (they seem more of the cultish group)

i am from the 2012 entrance era of bitcoin.

my definitions of a true maximalist are
supports and wants to protect BITCOIN consensus and protocols of the network, even against the human devs that may want to stifle,redefine bitcoin for their own profitable reasons

uses bitcoin for its store of value and utility.. but does not fear reading, researching, learning about other systems

does not object to other systems/networks. but is not afraid to call out on the ones with flaws people should be risk aware of

...
i myself only use bitcoin. and i mean bitcoin not the other networks that brand steal bitcoin
i do not fear reading code, and playing around on the other networks, for research.. but its not those networks i use as my store of value or utility..

i have not touched other altcoins(for value store/utility) like litecoin for about 8 years,
but i dont fear looking at other altnets and subnets and projects for research purposes and learning opportunities

my personal opinion (yes you must all by now know i have one, (and its my independent opinion, not one passed down to me by the cultish groups))

my opinion is that bitcoin has alot of potential, but that is currently stifled by the cultish loyalisms of a certain core group that had led to power. and their loyal supporters that fight off any idea's that dont follow the DCG roadmap... even the lead maintainer of the core dev group has admitted to the centralisation/cultish behaviours

there is a cultish mindset in the community since about 2015..  that support this stupid central point of failure, which has caused problems for the progress of bitcoin growth (on the bitcoin network,.. not to be confused with the offramping games to subnetworks pretending to also be bitcoin(by the cultish lot of younger people who entered bitcoin much later))


bitcoin could have done alot of ON BITCOIN growth in the last 7 years and had some good utility progress.
bitcoin still has potential for this growth.
i am and will remain a bitcoin maximalist. but i am a realist not a cultist.. and can happily call out the issues and risks and problems, because by being a realist, people can be awake to then work on those problems rather than lull people into cultish sleep of whatever silly games they wish to play pretending they know whats best because they call themselves maximalists too..

those people are the extremists of bitcoin. (much like trump supporters of 2016-202X)

It is funny to know that the term "bitcoin maximalist" was first introduced by shitcoiners who couldn't argue against those who were simply pointing out the flaws in the shitcoins they were bag holding. For example if you tell a ETH bag holder that their shitcoin is centralized with a mutable blockchain, they would reply by calling you a "maximalist".

Otherwise any bitcoin, specially those who are interested in the Bitcoin technology (not just profit making) are actually very keen on any other development in alternative cryptocurrencies. It's just that we are too tired of seeing the same copycoins claiming they are "better" just because they did something silly like changed block interval from 10 minutes to 2.5 minutes

I disagree. They are benefiting from two things:
1. Bitcoin history.
They basically tell newbies about how bitcoin has gone from $0.001 to $70,000.00 and convince them that their shitcoin can do to just because it is worth $0.000000001 today.

2. People's lack of technical knowledge
They rely on the fact that when you tell people a particular shitcoin's blockchain is mutable and centralized, they don't understand what it means and why it is bad.
They also rely on being able to convince them that the meaningless change they introduced in their  copy of bitcoin "solved" a "problem".

I see. Your point is that cryptocurrency should only do one thing -- be a simple money. That seems like a good point, but it could also be short-sighted. Also, keep in mind that Bitcoin has already been extended to be more than just a simple money.


If it were that easy or even that practical, it would have been done years ago. I think the idea is approaching wishful thinking. It may happen someday, but other coins already have a huge advantage.


I thought your point was that a cryptocurrency can't be a money if there is an abundance of them. Is Bitcoin then doomed, or was that not your point?

Want to agree but the loudest ones I used to come into contact with weren't even total nutjobs but were even just chest-out mealy-mouthed business suits who got lucky with Bitcoin, secretly invested in alts, publicly invest more in Bitcoin but ask them to sign a transaction and they'll fumble to figure out if they can do that with Coinbase Pro and Limited Edition gold-plated Ledger (I made this one up but not surprised if it exists). Not sure if they even really ever used Bitcoin in a supportive way.

Super toxic, pay to be seen at events and conferences... you know who they are before you know who the vegans are.

I do actually like most maximalists, they appear so to me, perhaps have never claimed to being one themselves.

I have nothing against anyone trying to make something better than Bitcoin, nor is it at all possible to ban someone from designing their own coin/token, and more than 20 000 such projects listed on CMC probably speak more than clearly in favor of that. What I see as a problem in this whole story is an absurd idea that Bitcoin maximalists are to blame for the failure of these alt-projects, because we support Bitcoin and warn others about the risks that arise from investing in altcoins.

I can agree that some coins may have some features that Bitcoin does not have, but for me personally, something like that is not too important. What Bitcoin has has been built from 2009 until today, and if someone thinks they can do better, let them get to work and show that they can achieve a greater degree of decentralization and trust that people have given Bitcoin.


We are going back to the beginning again, because it is our right to defend what we have confidence in and we cannot be blamed for the reason that some other projects are not or will never be as successful as Bitcoin. It's better to be skeptical and critical than to turn out to be a fool, and on top of that, the fool who invests in Terra/Luna type projects and still has an eternal memory of his stupidity tattooed on his shoulder.

Isn't that just being a Bitcoiner though, and not a maximalist?

To be fair with other cryptocurrencies, 99.9% aren't even trying to fight bitcoin in the currency category for a while now; a huge majority of them are trying to be pseudo-equity of a platform. Like stocks, but freely accessible to almost anyone.

I like it more when it's put as "they love Bitcoin more than any cryptocurrencies that will be created". They won't falter on that idea and they will explain how Bitcoin is better than anything. No toxicity, just plain reason of truth.

But there will always be a part to giving chance to new projects that are true to their intentions of making the crypto world a better place and what lacks in the technology and what is necessary to be added to speed things up. Good competition is healthy as long as it's not proven to be a shitcoin.

I implied that every cryptocurrency gives solution to the same problem, that is double-spending, other features asides.

Or you can implement it now, but instead of new currency, you can utilize the already existent. Do you want to add smart contracts that can't be implemented on Bitcoin blockchain? Make a sidechain (e.g., rsk). Your rules, but not your currency. The foundations of bitcoin are invaluable. Part of the ingenious technology is the stable, scheduled, human-resistant monetary policy.

So point me to merchants that accept more than 10, 20, 50.

That implies that Bitcoin can solve every problem, or that there is only one problem that needs to be solved. Both are unrealistic.


If I have a good idea, I can implement it now, or I can hope that Bitcoin might be able to support it some day. The choice seems clear to me. Do it now. If it fails, then maybe you can try again if Bitcoin ever gets around to supporting it. If it doesn't fail, then you have succeeded.


According to CMC, there are 20,000 cryptocurrencies. Apparently 20,000 is not abundant enough to nullify the whole money concept. How many does it take?

The bitcoin maximalists I know are more about individual beliefs about crypto most importantly, this represents someone's thoughts in reviewing bitcoin in the past and present, because they believe bitcoin can have a positive impact on society, with various assumptions and reviews, but more specifically I cannot explain what is meant by maximalism.
If you open your eyes, maybe this Maximalist has a strong meaning for individual thinking in the valuation of bitcoin as the most important.

You do not support the freedom of other developers to create other projects in the cryptospace that might be better than bitcoin?

Also, would you support those projects being developed in Ethereum to be developed in Bitcoin's ecosystem instead? I reckon if the Bitcoin developers and community were supportive of this there would not be any growth in the Ethereum ecosystem. It would also be arguable if Ethereum would be created.

Huh. Still better than Altcoin tribalists.

Answer me this: We have an idea. We can write code to implement that idea. It's something bitcoin isn't currently capable of doing due to consensus limit, and would require a hard fork (e.g., turing completeness, ring signatures, block size increase). But, what you'll be working on, is still money. So, you have two options; make that currency backed-by / based-on bitcoin or don't.

Can you justify why you'd choose the latter over the former? It appears to me that crypto coins are scarce, but cryptocurrencies abundant, which nullifies the whole money concept.

It seems to me that there is a range of Bitcoin Maxis. There are those who believe that Bitcoin will always naturally dominate as other coins fade into obscurity. And, there are those that believe that anything other than Bitcoin is a scam.

I think that Maxis generally feel threatened by other projects. I think a lot of it is because they have put money into bitcoins and they naturally don't want any other coins to succeed at Bitcoin's expense. I think the worst Maxis are the tribalists who identify so strongly as a Bitcoiner that they must defend Bitcoin by spreading lies and FUD (based on their own ignorance) about other projects.

I am not a Maxi. I believe that Bitcoin is the strongest and safest cryptocurrency. But some coins, such as Ethereum and Monero, provide benefits that Bitcoin may never be able to provide, and there is room for multiple currencies (as determined by the market, of course).

I think Pete Rizzo's description of Bitcoin Maximalism is too generous and does not accurately reflect the beliefs of Bitcoin Maximalists.

Just read the article. The definition of a "Maximalist" in it is broad enough to include people like me, who don't oppose altcoins generally, but do oppose some of the "traits" in the altcoin space. In my case, I'm particularly concerned about crypto projects which hide their centralist nature from the public, in my opinion mostly to be able to "ride the Bitcoin train" without getting control (and profit in an old-style, centralized way) out of their hands. (Thus the "decentralization maximalist" phrase below my boring avatar). But I have no problems with altcoins with Bitcoin-style openness like Monero, Groestlcoin or Grin, for example.

Generally, the Forbes article puts the focus more in the open, decentralized nature of Bitcoin (and Proof of Work as it's "base technology"), and not so much in the opposition to other cryptocurrencies. So I can agree with most of the statements of the "definition". The only point where I disagree slightly (so I'm maybe not a "true" Bitcoin maximalist) is the ignorance of the issues regarding energy sources powering mining and its carbon footprint. While the protocol for sure doesn't discriminate between miners working with fossil energy and those using renewables, the community itself should be able to promote the second group. The stance of some Maximalists that it doesn't matter which energy is used can be seen as a symptom for a trope I see critical in the Bitcoin community: to ignore the social aspects of the Bitcoin protocol. Code may be law in the Bitcoin protocol but there may be other "rules" (or perhaps "guidelines", as they can't be "enforced" easily) supporting it - like a commitment of the community to try to reduce the carbon footprint.

Maximalism isn't fanaticism. It isn't bad; it's neutral. It's similar to being stereotypical versus being racist.

Simply put, a Bitcoin maximalist is a person who supports the ideals of bitcoin, and fights FUD. That's how I understand it. Being toxic or non-friendly on altcoiners is reasonable, because having multiple currencies that thrive to give a solution to the same problem is somewhat against the ideals.

I identify as a Bitcoin maximalist.

Maximalism is harmful in any sector and majority of the time it doesn't make sense! As a real world bitcoin user, we need to be practical more than anything. Then only we will be able to put our best foot forward. Maximalism will force you to go all out even when your arguments have stopped making sense!

So I don't think a sane person would ever become a maximalist in any way. Rather they will try to avoid those people at any cost!

Pretty much. It's safe to assume that there are a lot of people that are Bitcoin-only just because it's the safest bet with probably the best risk/reward ratio, but at the same time doesn't look at other cryptocurrencies as 100% totally a scam. It's just that the total nutjob maximalists are the loudest ones.

It can be "Bitcoin maximalists", "crypto bros" or "NFT bros".
There's always a group delusional fanatic supporters, who think that the object of their worship is the best invention since bread.
If claiming that Bitcoin is better than shitcoins makes me a Bitcoin maximalist, then I am a Bitcoin maximalist. It's true that Bitcoin is better than the shitcoins. However, I wouldn't mind an altcoin that is actually better than Bitcoin. Unfortunately such altcoin doesn't exist.
I definitely don't think that Bitcoin Core is perfect and I don't believe that Bitcoin will become the one and only global currency.
The Bitcoin maximalists tend to believe in such statements. Maybe I'm not a true 100% Bitcoin maximalist after all.

Even as a non-maximalist, the article is pretty reasonable even though I expected it to be an article that mocks the maximalists.


True, but to be far we really don't have an official definition of "maximalism". Also, it's just mostly the Twitter bitcoin maximalists that promote "toxicity" for some reason, with them expecting it to actually be a net-positive.

It seems to me that Bitcoin maximalism has grown into a cultish group of individuals who tolerate nothing but Bitcoin. If it's simply Bitcoin over shitcoins, that would be acceptable. But it seems the movement has moved to the farthest extreme so that intolerance has grown toxic rather than helpful. We seem to have observed intolerance against innovation in general, intolerance against all other forms of investment, and so on.

The movement is now seemingly characterized with closed-mindedness rather than encouraging constant exploration and innovation and finding ways and possibilities to improve things, which was precisely what Satoshi did.

Other than this, it seems some who have been loudly claiming to be Bitcoin maximalists showed double standard. And some have eventually given up that label not because of realizations but because of financial prospects.

I am sharing this article without antagonizing anyone and also sharing it with much neutrality.

What are your latest comments, thoughts and opinions on Bitcoin maximalism?

The replies of the older members of the forum who joined before 2015 will certainly have more importance in this because they have witnessed the changes and the growth of the cryptospace from being simple to presently being billions of dollars of crazy hehee.



Bitcoin Maximalists are skeptical and critical of claims to technical advances made by other cryptocurrency softwares, and seek to maintain and bolster a culture of scrutiny.

Still, they acknowledge there are new services and products made available in the crypto sector, and that the product of this effort can provide learnings to Bitcoin.

However, they believe that these crypto assets and services are profiting off the short-term limitations of Bitcoin, and thus their use should be discouraged in order to inspire and fund the development of like offerings built on the Bitcoin network.

Read in full https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterizzo/2022/08/25/how-to-be-a-bitcoin-maximalist/?sh=76bcd4897036