

And then there are the pragmatists, like Carter and Anthony Pompliano, who see alpha in egging on Bitcoin’s fanatical vanguard-until it turns against them. That’s not to mention the string of Bitcoin pioneers who long ago went on to embrace a multi-denominational approach to cryptocurrencies, such as Erik Voorhees, Roger Ver, and Jesse Powell. Alex Adelman, the CEO of Bitcoin-only shopping rewards app Lolli, now calls himself a “Bitcoin optimist” and praised NFT culture at NFT NYC, and the previously zealous maxi Dan Held says he is a “ Bitcoin mostamalist.

The group is forever alienating potential fellow travelers: Tweeters Udi Wertheimer and Hasu fled in disgust not long ago, and former Bitcoiner hero Nassim Taleb went so far as to bitterly retract his foreword from a foundational maximalist economic text. I unblocked you though because i'm basically a nocoiner nowīut it wasn’t the first time a prominent Bitcoiner-which Carter surely still is-has actively sought distance from a movement whose obsession with purity continually costs it the support of influential people who would otherwise be natural allies.

Carter rejoined with a Medium post eulogizing maximalism as a “sickness,” then was seen jokingly fraternizing with a dreaded “ no-coiner.” It was all very infantile and embarrassing.ĭiamond dust is doing great as is flipside The maximalists fulminated at the apparent betrayal by a prominent supporter. Most recently they were haranguing a perceived former ally, the VC and essayist Nic Carter, after he revealed on Twitter that his fund, Castle Island Ventures, had invested in a company developing wallet-based login functionality that had nothing to do with Bitcoin. It’s that first group, the hard money theorists-known as “toximaxis” because of their tendency to be aggressive on Twitter toward anyone who doesn’t share their views-who are currently in crisis. The purpose of that project remains a subject of intense debate within the maximalist world: There are monetary theorists who believe Bitcoin’s natural “ hardness ” guarantees its future status as a global reserve currency others who believe it should serve only as a buffer against government interference in money supply others who regard the cypherpunk ideal of censorship-resistance as the killer use case and disparage other cryptocurrencies primarily because they rely on inferior security architecture. You may have recently seen some of the unhealthy internecine drama engulfing the Bitcoiner “ community ,” notably around who is-and who is most certainly not-a “maximalist.”Ī Bitcoin maximalist, in the broadest definition possible, is a person heavily invested in Bitcoin who believes Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that matters and all other cryptocurrencies are, if not scams, distractions from this one worthy, earth-shattering project.
