If you stop for a minute and think about it, you realize those two goals, mainstream adoption and maintaining the principles, our fundamentally at odds.

If the measure of success is mainstream adoption, then maintaining the principles that made us interested in this technology doesn't actually happen. mainstream adoption means adoption by people who don't care about these principles, the vast majority of people around you. how many people in here care about privacy enough to sacrifice some convenience on a daily basis? how many of the people you know use the same password on every website? how many people here would never share their private information on Facebook? how many people do you know who, who think Facebook is the internet and barely leave that space? and vote based on what they see there?

The problem is that mainstream adoption dilutes principles. The mainstream doesn't share your principles, it doesn't share your motivations. You're not the mainstream, you're the weirdos who are into Bitcoin. That's okay. this is an a mainstream thing and it's important that we recognize that, when we have principles we really care about, we can still affect change in the world even while those principles are being diluted around us.

Andreas Antonopoulos

Dublin, Ireland

May 2018

#bitcoin

#nostr

#grownostr