It seems there are patterns within patterns here Liquid is not all that liquid, people might even want it more when main chain fees are so high and people want to stack, save and not spend. There might end up being different prices for bitcoin. New layer twos are all the rage and we are going to need a while universe of options in this next bull market.
Bitcoiners have learnt the power of money, yet often in their daily lives they struggle to accumulate fiat. It could be ironic or reasoned, I don't know, but a good friend who is into bitcoin but also still holds on to what he himself will call "shitcoins" discussed this topic at some depth.
Money still sadly provides some signal in the fiat world, though this is degraded and distorted and often leading to destruction it is still useful for bitcoin maxi's to see these things during the transition. We can take the good parts out, use the bad currents to the advantage of the good and accelerate what we are trying to create. It is confusing as hell and that is why for many it is best to just phase out altcoins and fiat all together, but never fear! we will dive in.
It can be hard to create value in bitcoin only, not many people want to give you their bitcoin honestly, because they know what it is truely worth. So many of us need to earn fiat so that we can accumulate bitcoin.
One prime example of fiat money making is in the cryptocurrency scene. Often from a bitcoiners perspective it is completely subsumed to the forces of fiat. My friend (who has some crypto) explained that their meetups are more popular at the moment. This is even during the start of an exciting bull market where bitcoin has already outperformed riskier altcoins. Their meetups attract 10x the audience. So we want to figure out why? It seems it could be more than flashy marketing and promises of great returns.
As "decentralisation maximalists" and "bitcoin maximalists" the key differences in the behaviour of crypto and etherium type groups and to the "bitcoin only" type groups that we saw were:
1. Short term profits and saying YES to yield
2. Young people attending and today love
3. External focus, to much introspection creates division in a group
4. Starting with an open mind, all crypto is good crypto
So in the interest of promoting "bitcoin only" experiences let go through it point by point.
1. Time preference has a limit, being to longterm focused can scare off many people, it can also prevent action and we need action to have long term benefits. So where crypto groups encourage action with the promise of gains, championing yields, bitcoin groups have encouraged stacking and care, demonising yield in most forms and this has been at the cost of action. If there is nothing to do but wait, why even come to a meetup, its a security risk. I propose that ACTION can be the new bitcoin YEILD. Where our actions, though they may not turn to bitcoin immediately, will create value able intangible infrastructure and trust, and we should work on this with pace and intensity.
2. Having a positive mental outlook on life is important, bitcoiners often like to wax on about doomsday scenarios and how kids these days don't know how to live, music is not what it used to be. Nobody wants to be around people continuously whining, Instead I propose we focus on our achievements, how good we have it since finding bitcoin and how optimistic the future is for us with all the cool things that we do. The youth are great bitcoiners with potential to be the greatest and today and everyday we have is an honour live through. We have sacrificed, and we will continue to have temperance but at the same time we need to live our lives to the fullest now, leading by example and embracing our youth. We are all younger than our oppressors and isn't that fun, we are winning so well.
3. The ponzi nature of cryptocurrencies forces an external focus. This is because you need to find new people to feed the beast, exisiting people often find out what is going on, don't like it and then are of no value, even negative value, they are often ignored ghosted. Conversely in bitcoin circle introspection is common, all the way down, you can spend a lot of time doing this and it is valuable, we are kind of doing it here, but there is a limit. It comes at the cost of other things. Further to this loss of time we can't be perfect and can always find little issues with each-other, these things are often pointless and isolating. Too much introspection ends up making us worse.
Analysing ourselves, each others and different companies and groups bitcoin purity levels comes from a good place of "don't trust verify" but makes new relationships hard to establish. To grow the group we need to trust that new members will be good and will be made good just by being with us. If we have the right foundation the more people we bring in the better and they will find their way naturally without lecturing. Evidence suggests that bitcoin makes people naturally introspect to a level that creates good outcomes and that we just need to bring people to the school.
4. In bitcoin maximalism its easy to get clear on what is good and bad and then let people know, it's called getting toxic. It is a great feeling because it is so decisive and provides a clear course of action. At the same time we are innovating so need to embrace the unknown and the new. Having an open mind exposes you to scams, which is dangerous, it exposes your stack, but at the same time as a group it exposes you to new information and ideas.
Even if these ideas are misdirected they provide insight into how people are thinking. This is important if you are growing a group. A lot of people have been burnt by scams, but now, we are not as vulnerable to ideas as we may think. As cypto people start coming back to bitcoin and new people start looking at crypto and experimenting with things we know are hazardous we can have an open mind. Many people take that path and learn the hard way and for some that may be the only way they can get to bitcoin maximalism. So it's ok we can't protect them. We can learn a lot from this and we can help them by prioritising growth of the group.
More people will benefit in then end and our group will get bigger, which in the end is more valuable than one small toxic lesson. We can learn something from shitcoiners, they have built large groups. If we can learn how to negotiate these four factors well it will help bitcoiners who have fallen all the way into the bitcoin maxi rabbit hole. With larger groups bitcoin only people will have the infrastructure to make fiat money, which so it turns out at the moment, ironically makes better bitcoiners, because they will stack more!
In the name of action and at the risk of ostracism I'm listening for fiat signals now.
