There was this interesting article being shared about how Bitcoin is a Religion, literally. I read the points and it was so fascinating and true too. Whether you're a newbie or veteran in the Bitcoin space, this is definitely an interesting topic to think about.
The author of this Bitcoin is a Religion article is Joe Wiesenthal and here is the link of his article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-21/bitcoin-is-a-faith-based-asset-joe-weisenthal
The Prophet.
The first aspect of many major religions is a prophet like Jesus and so forth and in Bitcoin's case, we have Satoshi Nakamoto - an anonymous figure with mysterious origins. Remember, he published a white paper in a cryptography mailing list all the way back in 2008. He mined the Genesis block himself and Satoshi included a message in the Genesis block about bank bailouts.
He then collaborated online with early community members for a few years and then left - never to be heard from again.
He was also a benevolent figure. He mined 1 million early Bitcoins, which would now make him a multi-billionaire, but he never spent them at all and we can tell this by looking at the blockchain.
Immaculate Conception.
Another aspect of Bitcoin that similar to religion is its Immaculate Conception. We think about like how the birth of Jesus happened and in this case, Bitcoin also had a really clean and miraculous conception.
Satoshi mined himself to kick-start the network, but then he stopped after there was enough other people involved in providing hash rate. There was no pre-mine, no ICO unlike most other crypto projects and anyone initially can mine Bitcoin with the software available.
They also had faucets available to give people free Bitcoin for those who are interested to play around with it.
This was the ultimate fair distribution not like a lot of other projects that just stand to enrich their Founder's Pockets.
Sacred Message.
Bitcoin also had a sacred texts much like the Quran and the Bible. In this case, it was a short nine-page white paper and we have people framing it on their wall because they loved it so much. They also read and refer to it periodically and pull out portions of it to make a point in a public statement or debate.
Mystic Message.
Besides the main text, there's also some mystic text that maybe people find some scrolls in tombs in other religions. But in Bitcoin's case, we had early posts on the Bitcoin Talk forums. These cover topics like scaling network security, future rewards and so forth and became relevant years later. The people scour these early polls for hints and clues as to how to operate and what path to support.
The Early Disciples.
Much like other religions, Bitcoin also had respected early disciples and these we're early members that are revered for their contributions. Many worked with Satoshi himself online and these include people like Hal Finney who was a computer scientist, a cypherpunk and received the first Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi. Some people even said that he was Satoshi but he denied it.
Gavin Andresen also became the lead developer of the Bitcoin code base after Satoshi disappeared and before Satoshi left, he gave Gavin access to the code base and copy of the alert key.
Jeff Garzik was also instrumental as a software engineer and a huge contributor to the Bitcoin code base along with Satoshi and Gavin.
And there were other notable people like Mike Hearn, Adam Back, etc.
The Bitcoin Holiday.
Bitcoin also has holidays every year much like religious holidays like Christmas and Birthdays. For example, halving date every 210,000 blocks mined, roughly 4 years, Bitcoin's mining reward is cut in half and that is Day of the Halving.
And Bitcoins birthday on January 3rd is when the first Bitcoin was mined. And also some people made it Proof of Key's day in which you pull your funds from exchanges just to make sure that they have the coins they claim.
On October 31st, there is the white paper launch date when Satoshi first posted a white paper to the mailing list.
And the May 22nd is Pizza day. This is when a guy paid 10,000 Bitcoins for two Papa John's Pizzas delivered to him and this was all done through his Bitcoin Talk forums way back when Bitcoin barely costed anything and it was more so to spur on adoption.
Schisms.
Like many famous religions, there has been big schisms in the Bitcoin space, too. Just thinking about common cases in religion, you had Catholics and Protestants split apart, in the Bitcoin space you had the Bitcoin versus the Bitcoin Cash Civil War that led to a hard fork and two separate blockchains as well. This was a long and heated debate that really split the community and what cost it is that Bitcoin had trouble scaling and people wanted bigger blocks to hold more transactions while other people wanted to keep the blocks small and implement upgrades like Segregated Witness.
During this debate, a lot of people brought up points like what Satoshi said and what the white paper said to prove their points during the debates.
Claims To The Throne.
Now, like other Religions too, there have been many claims to throne. People who claim that they were the Propeth who has come to earth, for example.
In Bitcoin's case, the most famous case of this was Craig Wright. Still ongoing, he's an Australian Computer Scientist and businessman who has claimed for years to be Satoshi Nakamoto and has still not given up on that.
He's gotten a lot of media exposure, elaborate stories and ongoing lawsuits involving him surrounding this claim.
Most people in the crypto space, besides Bitcoin SV crowd, do not believe Craig Wright's claims. It's also important to know that he could just sign some message with Satoshi's key to prove that he is Satoshi but he hasn't been able to do so yet for multiple reasons that he claims.
There has also been other fake Satoshis over the years, for example, a guy in just the last few years from the U.K., he calls himself James Bilal Caan who put out a three-part blog saying that he's Satoshi. A lot of people instantly dove into his claims and pointed out a lot of inconsistencies, but it's funny that he even chilled a new crypto project at the end of his post so I personally don't give him any credence at all.
Hatred Towards Non-believers.
Another common part of religions is hatred and condemnation of non-believers saying that they're going to go down the earth, for example. In this case, Bitcoiners call a lot of people who like all coins a shitcoiners and say that their investments are going to be bound to go to zero as Bitcoin is the only true blockchain that is worthy of anything.
They also ostracized former Bitcoiners who has started supporting other coins as well. For example, Raoul Powell and they also call people who don't like Bitcoin and don't have any Bitcoin as no-coiners and they make fun of them when Bitcoin does well, for example Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff and so forth.
Sayings/Phrases.
Much like other religions, Bitcoin also has a lot of unique sayings and incantations like:
To The Moon
HOLD Until Lambos
Hyper Bitcoinization
FUD
FOMO
WRECKED
Not Your Key, Not Your Coins.
This is similar to many other religions that have their own unique phrases, own unique terms that don't mean anything outside of it.
Like other religions that paint a glorious picture of heaven or Life After Earth, Bitcoin also paints a picture of the promised land that our Bitcoin will go to the moon, will be able to buy and drive Lambos if we invest in Bitcoin early enough.
Good Versus Evil.
They also paint a picture of good versus evil, Heaven versus Bell like Angels versus Demons for, example. In this case, Bitcoin is the opposite side of the evil government currency or Fiat currency. This was even written in the first block mined by Satoshi about bank bailouts and essentially disliking the mismanagement of a country's money
Many Bitcoiners also say that the U.S. Dollar is like a monopoly money and not backed by anything since leaving the gold standard. They also point to other countries having hyperinflation like Venezuela and their currency being used as toilet paper now and essentially worthless.
They also point to government printing boatloads of money during this recent pandemic as a wide Bitcoin is needed as hard money and a funny running theme and running joke is to Bitcoiners hate a Fiat.
Special Diets.
Now a lot of religions also have Dietary Customs whether it's being vegetarian like a Buddhism or not eating cows and Hinduism or Halal and so forth.
In Bitcoin's case, there is even a sect of Bitcoiners that eat a carnivore diet that's only meat. They say that modern food is artificial just like modern money is and there's several prominent Bitcoiners advocating this.
Conversion Spectacles.
Last but not least, there's also public conversion events like in religions when people convert they make a big deal out of it, they invite their friends and family and community and they also post about it on social media sometimes openly.
And that's also the case in the Bitcoin space. People make such a big deal saying that they have converted to the Bitcoin way that they were wrong about it before and a lot of people tweet about it, articles about it, make videos about it.
Summarization.
The Prophet
Immaculate Conception
Sacred and Mystic Texts
Early Disciples
Bitcoin Holidays
Schisms
Claim To The Throne
Hatred Towards Non-believers
Sayings/Phrases
Good Versus Evil
Special Diets
Conversion Spectacles
I never cease to be amazed by human creativity. This is a very unique and illustrative article. Perhaps any religious orthodox can be offended by this comparison. But with an open mind, the similarity is evident. In both cases, you have to flee in terror from the frames of religiosity so as not to be captive.