Nic's Unpopular BTC Opinions @[email protected]

Bitcoin has a definite culture, but the folks protesting Bitcoin's culture present a caricature of it.

It is right to characterize Bitcoin as political. It is deeply political.

Bitcoin's institutionalization is largely at odds with the success of Bitcoin as black market money

A world where Bitcoin is successful is one where Bitcoiners are demonized, hated, and attacked. Citadels will be a necessity

Bitcoin isn't guaranteed to pump in a global recession. It will probably sell off

'Bitcoiners are hypocrites because they embraced some law' is a knuckle-dragging take. Everyone is hypocritical in some way. No one is internally consistent

There is no obvious way to determine which chain has the truest claim to being the original. There was no predefined dispute recognition solution. The best we can hope for is convergence on a single chain (this is basically the case today)

Bitcoiners should be preparing themselves for full Bitcoin criminalization. This won't be an easy road

Economic nodes are not made equal. Nodes connected to exchanges do have more political weight. However threats to partition the network are compelling and only a minority of users need to threaten for it to work.

Success for Bitcoin does not mean becoming a global currency and UoA. Minimum Viable Success in my mind is becoming a large, independent virtual commodity that is easy to move wealth in and out of without restriction

The chief value of bitcoin is not in hashpower, the community, or the software, but as a fairly and widely dispersed UTXO set

There is no obvious way to determine which chain has the truest claim to being the original. There was no predefined dispute recognition solution. The best we can hope for is convergence on a single chain (this is basically the case today)

Bitcoin may well be environmentally costly, but it is absolutely worth it, even if it cost 10x more. Because Bitcoin disempowers debt-financed consumerism which the ultimate environmental scourge

'Bitcoiners are hypocrites because they embraced some law' is a knuckle-dragging take. Everyone is hypocritical in some way. No one is internally consistent

Applications like Opentimestamps are both an incredible application of Bitcoin and also an oblique threat to its security model. Embedding high-value arbitrary data in Bitcoin increases the incentive to attack it and makes it more vulnerable

The code is the spec, the white paper was just a brochure. Satoshi updated and continually revised the code, acknowledging that Bitcoin had some inherent malleability.

The mysticism and spiritualism connected to Bitcoin and Satoshi is absolutely essential for it to catch on. It's profoundly good for Bitcoin. All of the best startups and projects are cult-like

There is absolutely no inconsistency in being pro securities regulation and being pro bitcoin. Being pro bitcoin does not require a blanket rejection of government or law

Success for Bitcoin does not mean becoming a global currency and UoA. Minimum Viable Success in my mind is becoming a large, independent virtual commodity that is easy to move wealth in and out of without restriction

It is right to characterize Bitcoin as political. It is deeply political.