There is a paradox that strikes me strongly here. On the one hand, a tonne of people seem to be interested in developing Bitcoins for ideological reasons, to develop a currency independent of corporations or central banks. On the other hand, one of the biggest groups I see on here are ex-forex traders hoping to make a quick profit! Intuitively, those seem like clashing beliefs to me: speculative-capitalist and anti-capitalist.
Or am I totally wrong.
The Bitcoin community is diverse. Bitcoin is just a tool and different people have different uses for it.
I see no paradox in that. Just like it isn't a paradox that nuclear technology can be used both for weapons and for powering zero-carbon TGV trains. It would only be a paradox if one use precluded the other, but that's not the case with Bitcoin.
Most people who are interested in Bitcoin for ideological reasons, are some flavor of libertarian and don't really fit into the traditional right/left or capitalist/socialist spectrum.
Libertarians are pro free market. Central banks are seen as a coercive distortion of the free market and that's why most libertarians oppose them. Some, but not all libertarians also oppose big corporations because they are seen to hurt the free market through practices like
regulatory capture.
There are also a lot of moderates and pragmatists in the bitcoin community, but they don't tend to be as vocal as the ideologists.
