Nostr Web Client

The changes in the development community have been expected as things mature and the development “organism” optimizes itself.

I was specifically referring to the wider community “movement”, which has seeming morphed away from its cypherpunk origins of bypassing the state and providing an alternative financial ecosystem to fiat, towards integration with fiat (exchanges, ETFs, payment processors), lobbying congress for bitcoin-related legislation (legal tender, “sensible regulation”), celebrating politicians who promote bitcoin, an so on.

I’ve had more than one OG privately share similar sentiments with me.

There’s a lot more I could go on about here.

Michael Matulef 2y ago

Thanks for sharing. Would love to hear all about it🙏

You hit the nail on head though. I think the change you're describing is unfortunately a byproduct of broader adoption. New network participates enter the network and adopt it with different values than the original cypherpunk origins. Consensus naturally shifts and steers the project away from the philosophical underpinnings that were the impetus of the origin.

Sadly I think that most people really don't want a separation of money and State, but rather an adoption of Bitcoin by the State.

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Discussion

Johnathan Corgan 2y ago

Sure. I mean there really isn’t a Bitcoin “community” per se; it’s not surprising that there are diverse motivations and values among participants in the network, and that these would shift over time.

Perhaps it is just a signal-to-noise issue for me personally, and the voices of the origin of the movement are drowned out by the more numerous “number go up” participants that look at Bitcoin more as an exchange ticker and a way to obtain more fiat.

Or maybe I’m just pining away for the old school hard core cypherpunk/voluntaryist discussions about building tools to solve one’s own problems instead of relying on the state to do so, where having sound and independent money is plays such a crucial role.

Your last sentence really sums it up.