Bitcoiners Must Reclaim Maximalism – Bitcoin Magazine
This is a transcribed excerpt of the “Bitcoin Magazine Podcast,” hosted by P and Q. In this episode, the hosts are joined by Pete Rizzo, editor at Bitcoin Magazine, editor at Kraken, and contributor to Forbes, to discuss Bitcoin Maximalism and its relationship to moral values.
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Pete Rizzo: It is very common for cultures to reclaim words, and often cultures reclaim words that are expressly used as insults to them as a way of honoring their culture. This is something very common for most cultures. And if you think of another culture in the United States, it’s probably very easy for you to think of such examples.
So I think Bitcoin maximalism is something that needs to be reclaimed a little bit because I think we should want to expand Bitcoin. We should want to do that. If we don’t… then the whole thing becomes logically inconsistent.
P: You make a point that there needs to be more than just a reaction to a word that has a negative connotation, we need to define what it means.
Rizzo: And I think the crypto world shouldn’t resent that, because it’s actually better for any kind of cryptographic network that we’re building here, it’s better that it’s built on Bitcoin because it’s more trust-minimized, which benefits all bitcoin holders. likewise, it’s not something that’s opaque, like foundations and third parties, anyway.
So if it is better to build something on Bitcoin, the goal for us as people who are attuned to the most positive outlook for humanity should be to build those things on Bitcoin… In that case, Bitcoin Maximalists are antagonistic to … crypto. world…
And my argument here would be, we’ve become very focused on the negative things, we’ve become very concerned about who has done the least bad things and what the bad things you shouldn’t do are, and then people call out the bad ones the things and then shame them for the bad things….
P: I think another way of framing it is that it’s kind of a scarcity mindset versus an abundance mindset. Like, you’re focused on how to avoid punishment versus trying to challenge yourself…
Rizzo: I think that there exists this weird dichotomy where it’s, you know, if we don’t do something as a community to minimize, you know, if you’re not a crypto minimalist, if you’re not trying to minimize the amount of other cryptocurrencies that are out there, you enable their use, and you allow them to exist.
And if they are always going to exist, why would you judge them? They will just always exist. What’s the use of hating them? They will only continue to be useful. So it’s actually your action that matters, and it’s true that we can do everything that the cryptocurrencies do to Bitcoin over enough time and with enough reason and logic, then that should be the highest aspiration.
