A few days ago, Vitalik Buterin published a comment in Reddit about Bukele’s government and the approach of enforcing the use of BTC (with LN and Strike/Chivo wallets).
As I was expecting, r/cryptocurrency banned me after commenting, so I deleted (again) my Reddit account. I identify this website as a threat to freedom of speech and as useless for the idea of exchanging constructive ideas and arguments.
Reddit’s approach is about creating powerful hubs to control the flow of information, and censoring is a method widely used by subreddit admins. I want nothing to do with such a platform that abuses the power of high internet traffic.
A few supervisors in control having as a purpose just to promote their interests (heavy bags) and exclude from discussion arguments they feel threaten their profit from the crypto market.
Since I don’t want to become a vessel of these crypto-admins (juvenile and immature amateurs) manipulative tactics, I’m staying far from Reddit and advise everyone to do the same.
This is the same with r/cryptocurrency and r/bitcoin. These subreddits are censorable and promoting private interests.
Searching Google using the keywords “Reddit” & “Censorship”, we receive 12,7 million results about this topic.
Reddit is just another Orwellian dystopia that barely has any interest, except perhaps the Mystery subreddits that still have some very creative investigators.
Vitalik slams the "BTC" maximalists.
Image from Flickr (Creative Commons Licence) , by TechCrunch
Someone had to speak and I'm glad this was Vitalik.
Nothing unpopular about this opinion. Making it mandatory for businesses to accept a specific cryptocurrency is contrary to the ideals of freedom that are supposed to be so important to the crypto space. Additionally, this tactic of pushing BTC to millions of people in El Salvador at the same time with almost no attempt at prior education is reckless, and risks a large number of innocent people getting hacked or scammed. Shame on everyone (ok, fine, I'll call out the main people responsible: shame on Bitcoin maximalists) who are uncritically praising him.
Source (not providing any Reddit links again after the censorship of read.cash and noise.cash links by this medium).
Vitalik didn't slam the centralized Chivo/Strike wallet, though. My question was about it, however, the r/cryptocurrency devs felt I shouldn't be there asking questions on the centralized services they promote.
Vitalik states the obvious, here, but most in the Bitcoin Cash community were already skeptical. Vitalik lambasts the BTC maximalists, but also with this post gives another signal, one that the Bitcoin Cash community is also discussing often.
Vitalik mentions Bukele accepting BTC (not using Bitcoin)
Probably this hurts more the maximalists than anything else described in this comment. They don’t care about Bukele’s tactics of forcing the use of cryptocurrency; they don’t care about the centralization issues of the LN and only want to promote the narrative that will help BTC reach higher prices.
Although, they care for one factor alone; the brand name (Bitcoin).
Vitalik intelligently uses the word Bitcoin, only when describing the maximalists, which is derogatory and not a positive characterization for a person.
Especially when we discuss technology, being a narrow-minded maximalist that only supports one technology and ignores all the rest means only ignorance and lack of knowledge or understanding.
It is a paradox to self-proclaim yourself as a Bitcoin maximalist. You are simply telling the world you have very little understanding of what code is, what progress means and only declare ignorance on cryptocurrency financial technology.
Of course, we call Bitcoin maximalists all those BTC bag holders, but this term should also change to BTC maximalists.
There is no Bitcoin left in BTC, but a hijack of the brand name, and Vitalik understands this.
In Conclusion
Source: Twitter
Bitcoin Cash will soon outperform the market and reach high enough spots to challenge BTC once again.
The BTC maximalists can only delay by censoring Bitcoin Cash news and articles from the public.
Eventually, Bitcoin Cash will reach the ears of the new investors and they will stop acting as sheep following the recommendations and the controlled content of Reddit and social media communities.
It takes a popular person with ethos to speak out against the control of the narrative by speculators and individuals promoting regulations and taming of cryptocurrency.
BTC maximalists are hindering progress and innovation in this field, when supporting an authoritarian regime, enforcing at gunpoint a controversial monetary regulation.
At least the Ethereum community has been so far against such strange developments. However, it is sad to see some BTC proponents not speaking up against this pattern of custodial services and authoritarianism that we watch today unfold.
I always thought that early Bitcoin entrepreneurs and advocates like Kraken's CEO Jesse Powell or Andreas Antonopoulos would have adopted a hard-line towards custodial services in the crypto world. It seems there is nobody that cares anymore. If compromising morals helps to increase the price, then is this an acceptable approach for the BTC maximalists?
Images:
Lead Image from: Flickr (Creative Commons Licence)
Related Material (previous articles on read.cash):
Subservience To the State - Custodial Wallets Invalidate Cryptocurrency
Betrayal of Principles - BTC Modern Maximalism & The Regulatory Agenda
How the Banks Hijacked Bitcoin, Using Blockstream as a Trojan Horse - Why Bitcoin Cash
Also suggest reading:
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I suppose at the end of the day Bitcoin cash is denied because it works. It actually works. And has more potential for portability, in my opinion, than Bitcoin ever will. As for social media platforms in general, I have lost a ton of faith in them for having anything but nefarious intentions. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit...none of them are worth anyone's time nor attention to my mind.