My article, “The Bitcoin Culture War Won’t Win Mass Adoption” is live! Thanks again to Peter Chawaga and #[0] for running the article. Enjoy!
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/why-does-bitcoin-culture-skew-right
Discussion
”lifestyle maxi” that makes one good trade on bitcoin in 2017:
“I AM NOW THE WORLDS PREMIER EXPERT ON ECONOMICS, CLIMATE, MEDICAL SCIENCE, RELIGION AND SOCIAL ISSUES!!!”
I really don’t think the culture maxis are as consequential as you suspect here. Soon every normal persons bank will be loudly offering bitcoin and people will get in regardless. Given bitcoins rice action it’ll probably still be really affordable
price action 🤦🏻♂️
I agree with you, but we and those most vocal in the community can do better, because attacks are going to increase over this next political cycle and more on the right will continue to argue that it is synonymous with their right/libertarian views, and the left will attack. Need more mainstream messaging, not more “statist” “fiat brain” “maximalism” etc. everyday people are like wtf are you talking about??
With -15% of voters owning a little bit, unless crypto donations are are a major factor (they could be!), I don’t see bitcoin breaking the top 8 issues politicians are going to be willing to speak to. Could be wrong.
I feel that we’re in a podcast bubble here. I have plenty of moderate liberal friends who already have some bitcoin and have never heard of the lifestyle maxis and probably never will. And even if they do come across them, people say they care but don’t really—still know plenty of ultra pro cancel culture people who listen to Kanye lol
Great post,Trey! Agree with almost all you points. Personally, I don’t think the argument that #Bitcoin separates money from the state is an appealing one for the middle of the bell curve folks. Whenever I bring this up with friends or family, they say that sounds paranoid. I know the Fed is a flawed institution, but no serious person believes that government is actively trying to keep people poor by inflating the currency.
What is more compelling, I think, is that Bitcoin is a far superior way of transferring value between parties than our current system of trusting third-party intermediaries or using paper currency. In other words, just what Satoshi talks about in the white paper. At the end of the day, it is just a protocol for doing exactly that in a way that is irreversible so long as attackers don’t control 51% of the hash rate.
You are 100% correct that we need to educate people more on the fundamentals (I use email and SMTP as an example, and that seems to resonate), and get rid of all this weird lifestyle stuff that fundamentally has nothing to do with what #Bitcoin actually is.
Cheers and thank you!
Btw love the term “lifestyle maxi” which appropriately removes “bitcoin” from “bitcoin maxi” since it has absolutely nothing to do with these beliefs
Can‘t agree more: Bitcoiners must focus on the ideals, values and benefits of Bitcoin for everyone. This is indispensable for global mass adaptation. Thanks for this clear and important statement, #[2].
Hey, congrats on the article! I’m a staunch believer that bitcoin adoption has to include everyone. You can’t change anyone’s ideas with narrow-mindedness and vitriol. What you can do is welcome them to explore on their own, and help them when they have questions. We all know bitcoin rewires people’s brains once they truly start to understand it.