Discussing Bitcoin versus Slavecoins
A group of Bitcoiners discuss the fundamental differences between Bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency ecosystem
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[00:00:06] CK: What is up, Bitcoiners? It's your boy, CK. Waiting for Pete Rizzo and Aleks Svetski to join. We'll be taken over, but I'm just here to fill in the void. It looks like Pete just jumped in. While we're waiting for everything to get settled here, just want to inform me all about the venue for Bitcoin 2022. I was actually just there yesterday and it is absolutely next level. If any of you were at Bitcoin 2021 this year, earlier this June in Miami, you know it was an incredible event.
with that, the event was a little bit oversold. There's too many people in the venue and that will not be happening again this year. The guest experience is going to be absolutely A-plus topnotch. The Miami Beach Convention Center can scale up to 100,000 people, and it's going to be absolutely fantastic. We have a enormous amount planned for all the Bitcoiners out there. Of course, like any big one conference, we respect your privacy, we respect what Bitcoiners respect. We are Bitcoiners.
This is an event put on by Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners. I think, all of you will be very pleased with the announcements that are soon to be coming. If you haven't already purchased your ticket, you can get 10% off by using promo code satoshi. That is Bitcoin Magazine's official promo code. Yeah, don't hesitate. If you are traveling from abroad and unsure of whether or not you'll be able to get into the states, still buy your tickets while they're cheap. If you can't come because of any legal restrictions, we will refund you. You will also probably be able to sell the ticket on a secondary market for a nice profit as well. this is not investment advice, but we're trying to make it as risk-free and easy as possible to come to the event.
Bitcoin 2022 in Miami, April 6th through the 9th. It’s going to be absolutely game-changing. All right, that's enough for me. I'm going to pass it over to Rizzo and Svetski.
[00:01:59] PR: Yeah, and I’ll also add, you can meet cool people there. It’s where I met Svetski last year. Also, networking a key component for the Bitcoin Conference.
[00:02:08] AS: Am I cool now? I thought I was toxic. Wait a minute. What's going on here? I'm being reclassified.
[00:02:15] AS: I don't know the difference there, but – I guess, we'll get into it. How are you, man? Good to hear from you.
[00:02:20] AS: I'm good man. I'm good. I was just literally having a conversation with a special Bitcoiner, who is also in here. Pablo.
[00:02:28] PR: Nice.
[00:02:28] AS: Yeah. I'm doing very good. We had a incredible fucking week last night. I was on a series of pods, and we raised some money for Amber for some of the new really, really fucking cool shit that we're going to be doing for Bitcoin.
[00:02:42] PR: Well, congrats, man.
[00:02:43] AS: Thank you.
[00:02:43] PR: Yeah. Definitely good to see the Bitcoin-only businesses do well. I guess, yeah. I mean, just to backtrack on our convo, I think this was more informal between me and you, right? I think that one of the things I was keen to catch up with you on is just, I think we're both – we both have different dispositions to Bitcoin evangelism, I think, of say, I'm a bit more left with the bell curve maybe, or right about, whichever version of the bell curve it is.
but yeah. Just curious to get your take on the state of things and also, the recent article I published on Forbes, which was Against Cryptocurrency, the case for Bitcoin Maximalism. Definitely was inspired by your work as well. I viewed it a bit as a intelligent framing on the Bitcoin, not shitcoin argument that you wrote about as well.
I know that we have been talking about, as far back in May or April, where I think I was struggling to put forward maybe an argument that was more intellectually appealing for Bitcoiners, but still core to Bitcoin maximalism. Yeah, I guess, that's what I was curious to just jump off that and maybe dive into that subject.
[00:03:47] AS: Yeah, man. I think, I mean, the conversation really, I remember it when we were sitting on the table with – it was with Russ and Francis and stuff. That's who we're actually having a conversation. Yeah, and we'll try to dig into, okay, but why is Bitcoin-only so important? What's the special ingredient? I think, I tried with that piece, with that I did the why Bitcoin not shitcoin, to elaborate on three core pillars, like the economic reasoning, the moral reasoning and think, it was the philosophical. It was those three. Then, I think Allen did something similarly, actually, in his really one piece, Only the Strong Survive, which I still haven't read yet, because it was fucking war piece that –
[00:04:29] PR: Yeah. That one’s – that long.
[00:04:31] AS: Yeah. I was like, “Fuck you, Allen.” Because he was sending it to me beforehand. He was like, kept telling me, Oh, this is the DeFi piece,” in his little squirrel accent. he kept trying to get me to read it. I'm like, “Dude, I got a company to run, man. Give me a break.” He did a similar angle, and then your one was just obviously a more synced piece that was, I guess, more – I don't know. We obviously have a very different writing style. Yours is I guess, more formal/objective?
[00:05:01] PR: Yeah. I think, it's more deferential to the other – for the other side.
[00:05:05] AS: Yeah. That's it. That's it. They all say the same thing, I guess, differently. How would you sum up – Maybe, I feel like I'm throwing the question back at you. If you had to sum up what you said, because I know, what I did was try and blend – I went for the lead bullet approach. Bitcoin’s not different, because of a single silver bullet. It's different because of a blend of things and that blend of things is impossible to recreate. what would you say was your sum-up, or summation for Bitcoin?
[00:05:36] PR: Yeah. I think I can take it from there. I think, one, I'll start with just the why of Bitcoin maximalism. I think for a long time, I think, as people who support Bitcoin only, I don't know, I felt that it's hard to vocalize exactly – or I don't know. I felt there was a missing piece for me where it was like, okay, why – It's one thing to think that Bitcoin is the best of all alternatives, right? That is one classification, or the way to look at it. then, the other thing to say that you only support Bitcoin is just a completely different spectrum.
I think, I was really trying to wrestle with that, because I think, ultimately if you're a Bitcoin maximalist, you have to believe that the only, or best option – actually, I would say, the only option is to support Bitcoin, so this theme of Bitcoin-only. I think, that's what I was looking for, because I think what this piece, what I was trying to really tease apart was what actually separates Bitcoin maximalism from what I call crypto agnosticism, which is this idea that just any cryptocurrency is just satisfactory, because it's a non-government cryptocurrency.
I think, that at the heart, I think, a lot of – some Bitcoin maximalist, I actually think are crypto agnostics. I'll explain why, because I think at some point, some of the arguments we make for Bitcoin, you listen to some people talk about why they believe in Bitcoin maximalism. A lot of these arguments are I feel like, are constructed in such a way where if Bitcoin wasn't the number one asset, they might just construct the same counter arguments for some other asset. I guess, what I mean by that is that I think crypto agnosticism is actually something that occurs within Bitcoin and then within cryptocurrency generally. I think that if you are a crypto agnostic, probably, what you believe is that there's some comparative basis by which Bitcoin is the best by person.
Really, what you're doing is you're creating some sliding scale, where it's possible for some other cryptocurrency to displace. I've talked to people who are Bitcoin maximalist and they'll straight out, admit this framing. Where they'll say like, “Oh, well. If something else was Bitcoin economically dominant, then Bitcoin would have would have failed or something like that.” Not everyone, but there are some people, I think, who believe this. Then I was trying to tease apart –
[00:07:46] AS: Can I capital on that thread just really quickly? Because I just want to point something out. one, I just wanted to say, I loved when you sent me the draft, crypto agnostic and Erik Voorhees got triggered by that. He's like, “This framing is triggering.” I was just sitting there laughing with that, because – Dude, it's such a good framing though, because that's effectively what it is. I really just want to echo your sentiment there is, it reminds me of the same sentiment, or reminds me of the same type of argument, or counter argument that people use about the Bitcoin energy thing, is they step into the frame of who they're arguing with, which is they say, “Oh, well. Bitcoin uses renewables.” It's like, no.
[00:08:28] PR: Right, right. Exactly right. That's a diminutive argument, because you’re accepting [inaudible 00:08:32].
[00:08:32] AS: Exactly. It's the wrong frame. Bitcoin eliminates the wastage of a world in which economic consequences doesn't exist. As a result, will make the world 99% more efficient. That is what Bitcoin thing is. You need to fuck about what the energy mix is. That’s like, you got to change the frame. What you're doing here is, you're changing the frame, which is Bitcoins in a different fucking category altogether. anyway, I just wanted to pull on that.
[00:08:56] PR: Yeah. I think, what you're pointing out is what I struggled with for a while, where it's like, a lot of arguments for Bitcoin seem like they're passively accepting of the other frame. I think, the other frame is really what I needed to define to get out of this piece, so I'll just restate it, where I think – again, crypto agnostics, I think seemingly, they seem to be fine with any version of a non-state government money and they seem to be deferential to the market to adjudicate claims to the status.
I think, immediately, one of the differentials that I feel I finally tease a part of a lot of thinking, I think, to be a Bitcoin maximalist, I think you have to believe that – the way I’m phrasing the pieces that the definition of a neutral, non-state monetary system is just something that exists in economics and computer science. That is just something, either satisfies that definition independently, or it doesn’t.
Whereas, the cryptocurrency agnostics, I think, one of the things that done, and I think, it took me a really long time to realize this is that offloaded this decision-making to the market. Again, this puts them in a position where – and this confounded me for a very long time, because it's like, they're looking for something else. They're seemingly fine with any technology that meets some criteria. That's essentially what they're saying. Because they're saying, one, this market is valid, we accepted the frame of the market. Two, whatever the market chooses, or elevates must therefore be good. then three, because we're looking at the market, we believe in this data. We believe that it's somehow meaningful.
Well, I think from the Bitcoin maximalist perspective, I don't think that's true. I don't think we care about the data, and CoinMarketCap, or Masari, or any of these types of things at all. I just think, that data is completely irrelevant to us.
[00:10:31] AS: I was going to riff on that really quickly, is I think – That reminds me almost of the quote that I put in the [inaudible 00:10:37] article recently of Henry Ford, about if I asked people what they wanted, they would have said, “I want faster horse and carriage.” What Bitcoin is doing, what Bitcoin is doing is reinventing the basis upon which money and human action – the basis upon which human action can be measured. Reinvents money completely differently. I guess, the category is unlike anything else.
Whereas, what crypto is doing is it's trying to take some of the technological elements of what Bitcoin is, but still apply them in the framework of the old world, and try and see how it can partner with the banks and the governments, and still live within that old frame. Whereas, Bitcoin is like, “No, no, no. We're moving into a new land, into a new place.” and this means that all of these metrics and stupidities don't actually mean anything.
It reminds me of the way Keynesian economics works in a sense. They create a metric to satisfy a particular thing that they want, and they build a model around that metric. then they keep adjusting the metrics to fit the model, instead of reality. It's like, it is complete derangement. Whereas, I don't know if that's – if I've explained that well, but reinvention doesn't rely on taking some meaningless metrics and looking at it through a lens of the existing world. Bitcoin is different.
[00:12:04] PR: I think, we're saying the same thing. I think, what I'm saying is that a lot of the arguments where I was firstly, it was Bitcoin maximalist arguments is they seem deferential to those metrics. We'll end up arguing that Bitcoin is the most decentralized and we'll spend a lot of time – by the way, I think only the strong survive. I also think, is very guilty of this. It spends a lot of time accepting the frame of decentralized finance, arguing why conceptually decentralized finance works and then reconstructing – attempting to reconstruct the reader's idea of why Bitcoin is more decentralized than other alternatives.
Immediately, what you've done is you've accepted that frame. your attempt then is to argue that Bitcoin is more decentralized based on some metric. What you're seemingly saying, even though you're arguing for Bitcoin from the crypto-agnostic perspective, and I think this is why they view a lot of our arguments as weaker than they are. They're seeing that argument and they're saying, “Oh, well. Okay. Then seemingly, you should be fine with any cryptocurrency as long as the most decentralized,” which also is true, right?
There's properties to Bitcoin outside of decentralization. I mean, obviously, decentralization is very important to Bitcoin, but there are other properties. Like the 21-million-coin cap, or have nothing – They're completely outside of that metrical comparison. I think that, I also struggled with that for a while, because I do agree with that. I think that there was a right criticism that was being put forward. I think, they'd become overly reliant on trying to prove that Bitcoin is the most decentralized, trying to establish some metric for that, or even economics, on the economic side.
We spend a lot of time also arguing that Bitcoin is the best form of money based on satisfying his property, so he spent a long time educating people about economics. ultimately, I just don't know how much people on the other end really care about that.
[00:13:44] AS: I was going to say, I actually recall you and I hitting that point at that dinner, was we're saying, we got so hung up on fixed supply of 21 million, fixed supply 21 million, sound money, hard money. then these fucking dweebs, the 25 and 30-year-old virgins over at Ethereum decided to do ultrasound money. It's like, they use the marketing spin against us. Whereas, the better frame would have been an inability to change the cap. Or sorry, it was deflationary money, or whatever we call it. Deflation is good or whatever.
They jumped onto that. Whereas, what we need to lean into is where they can't lean into, which is can you show me something out there that actually is in the same category of Bitcoin? Wherein, there isn't a foundation, or a group, or design by committee kind of thing that exists, that is out there to try and compete in the marketplace as a product effectively. Bitcoin is different to that, again, it's not a product that we're trying to tinker with, so that we can sell it to people at the shop, or that we need to build a whole marketing campaign around.
We can't, tomorrow, change Bitcoin supply issue and scheduled to go nowhere, ultra-ultrasound money. We can't fucking do that. the very fact that Ethereum can change from world computer to ultrasound money is why it's different to Bitcoin. anyway, I don’t know if I'm explaining that quite –
[00:15:19] PR: Yeah. I think, what you're saying is correct also. The way that I think, I think I ultimately came to after that conversation, the thing that I wasn't thinking about that I've tried to reincorporate in this article is that I do think from one perspective, Bitcoin is vastly superior to the others.
again, I think, again, people have been [inaudible 00:15:36] for a while, but is that Bitcoin protects user rights to a greater degree. I think that when you get into this, and you have this framing in your article on economic, philosophic, and moral. It's like, I feel the moral argument is of these the strongest. It is the strongest case for Bitcoin. I think, if there's anything that we could have done a better job, or could do a better job on is just trying to bend some of these arguments back to that point.
Some of these more complicated argumentations is like, you get lost, like, why does this matter? Why does it matter that Bitcoin has 21 million and you can make all these elaborate economic arguments for it? Or, I think, and ultimately, I think I phrase this in the article, and this is how I've – now I think, wants to start treating it as like, you have the right to unknown money supply, unknown, fixed, unchanging money supply in Bitcoin. therefore, any other cryptocurrency just simply does not offer you that. There's just no condition under which that right will exist.
I ended up trying to flip these longer arguments into just really, what's the point? If Bitcoin is the most decentralized, it's like, well, why does that actually matter to you? I think, the ultimate answer is it's because your rights have the greatest percentage chance of being insured in a system in which there is no control. Essentially, I think we've spent a lot of time arguing why Bitcoin is both decentralized, but we're able to also argue why that's meaningful to people.
I think, it's just about bending it back in, where it's, the reason that that matters is because then these other systems – and this was the other thing I got from the article as well in writing it is just, I think, what the other cryptocurrencies do by and large is that they just put the rights of the user and then they make them subjects to the market. I think, that was something that I've seen some people present some criticisms of that claim, and I'd be curious to your read on that. what I ultimately think they do is if you think about these cryptocurrencies as systems, where essentially, because they're constructed in such a way where any majority, or organization, or political entities force their will on others, they're essentially not much different than that the systems that they're trying to replace, from the perspective of user rights. Somebody can take away your rights.
[00:17:46] AS: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I don't know, see, if market is the right word there. What you described was basically, democracy. It's like, okay, the majority want this, so now we're going to do this. Whereas, if the majority of human beings didn't like gravity, and they just decided to start jumping off a cliff, it wouldn't work out very well for them. it's a universal law, right? When I try and frame Bitcoin to people is not just better money. it's not just the next iteration of money. I’m really going on a rampage and I was doing this with the [inaudible 00:18:17] is that there will be historically speaking, before Bitcoin and after Bitcoin.
Before Bitcoin was the era of humanity, in which human beings attempted to discover better means and better objects and better tools to represent this metaphysical thing called money and money is this metaphysical fabric that allows us to intersubjectively value time, energy and scarce resources. Money will always exist. It's the object that we use to represent money will change.
Now, Bitcoin is actually perfect for that. as a result, we're not going to go and build a better Bitcoin for [inaudible 00:18:59]. it's the substrate. What this discovery means, the discovery of energy money for an intelligent sentient species, means that this thing called money, this metaphysical thing called money becomes information and becomes something that is out of the reach of all of us and lives in the realm of gravity, the speed of light, the second law of thermodynamics, etc. It's out there, and none of us can go and change that.
All we can do is use it to our advantage. You go and build a fucking plane, you design aerodynamics to leverage gravity, so that you can fly. You don't change fucking gravity. You don't change the speed of light. that framing is something I've been trying to use.
[00:19:44] PR: I think, you're ultimately talking about that Bitcoin is fixed and that it's something that, because it is able to hold its guarantees to such a level, that is what gives it its properties. I've even seen this in response to the piece. Part of the reason I wrote this was to open source this conversation with the journalistic community, in saying like, “Look, this idea that you have that cryptocurrencies are neutral, just does not exist.”
from the perspective of user rights, these are very different systems. you should really try to stop thinking of them as just stocks and bonds that are just have no end relationship to the user. I think, to the people who have actually honestly intellectually engaged with that conversation, and messaged me privately, I'm still surprised by the extent to which the questions are dominated by what ifs. The questions that I've gotten in response are always like, “Are you saying there's no chance that Bitcoin will ever change the 21 million hard cap?” Which, the obvious answer is, absolutely yes. That would invalidate most of the properties of Bitcoin.
they don't seem to grok that. They're still asking questions about, “Okay. Well, what happens if Bitcoin can't support the fee market? Then are changes going to happen?” They've still seemingly, and again, this is coming from the perspective that I think we're both trying to argue against is that there is this neutral cryptocurrency lens. Defusing that bomb seems to be strange, because you're always – For some reason, the cryptocurrency market has been really good in becoming the central frame. therefore, you're always met with questions that seemingly have to be – you have to actually argue against the entirety of the frame of the question, as opposed to answer it itself. Because again, it's coming from such a different perspective.
[00:21:23] AS: A 100% agree with that. This framing thing, again, is really important. The fact that – how am I going to phrase this? I want to just tie back to user rights and what you said about market in majority, is that the way a functional market works is not by changing the rules that the players of the game – If the market is a game, effectively, being able to change the rules of the game, mid-play, is not actually a functional market. What it is, is you do that, and you argue that a majority of people wanted to change the rules of said game. You then impose the rules onto everybody else. I'm trying to think of an analogy here to Bitcoin, is that even if a bunch of people want to change the rules of the game, it's like a universal law.
[00:22:15] PR: I think, the way that this has been phrased so far is Bitcoin is apolitical. I think, that's the best argument that I’ve seen before, is that Bitcoin not only rejects political apparatuses, it removes your rights from being subject to the political apparatuses. Bitcoin is disrupted in such a way where political groups, even to the extent that they emerge, they can't actually impact, or make any decision that affects you. I think, that's a hard argument to get across.
I think, I'm intending to work on this a little bit more, because I do feel that's one of the most powerful arguments with Bitcoin, is that it is a political, that in some ways, it is anti-democratic. It doesn't function like democracy does. You can almost look at Bitcoin governance as an evolutionary step away from democracy. I think, that's the conversation that I understand why people haven't made that argument, but maybe it's time, because, I don't know. To me, I feel like, Bitcoin is post-democracy and somewhere.
[00:23:13] AS: Dude, I have 3,000 words to this article written at the moment literally. It's called Bitcoin is Not Democratic. Bitcoin is apolitical. Literally you just fucking called on that right.
[00:23:23] PR: There you go.
[00:23:25] AS: that'll be that'll be the later this month, or November article to Bitcoin Magazine. It's literally, you just nailed it. Bitcoin is totally post-democratic. It exists in a realm in which the masses can do whatever the fuck they want to do. my Bitcoin is my Bitcoin, and I enforce the rules that – It's like, that right there is so foreign to the existing world, in which people believe that democracy is some panacea. Like you said, they can't fucking grok it. They don't understand it. I'm in Costa Rica at the moment. I'm down here with my girlfriend and we've been having friends and all these girls over and stuff like that. Long story. Anyway –
[00:24:06] PR: Hanging out with Mersha’s ghost as well?
[00:24:09] AS: Mersha’s ghost, basically. Literally, I’m recreating that now. anyway, they're all feminine, and everyone ends up flowing into that whole like, oh, equality and all this stuff. I was actually having this discussion yesterday about why democracy is such a bad idea. I tried to use the idea of rule by committee. As an example, when deciding what a – let's say, a household of 20 people would like to buy from the shopping center, or would like to eat. I said, “All right, there's two ways. It's either everyone works individually, takes their own individual money and goes to the shop and buys whatever the fuck they want. Or, they take their money, they put it in a pool, and then as a committee, they go and decide what everyone's going to eat, because they're going to pool the money together and buy what needs to be bought.”
there's the 20 people, 11 vote for broccoli, three vote for meat and the remaining six vote for fucking salad, or some shit. then because, the committee, one, everyone's going to eat broccoli. now, the people that voted for salad and meat, they got to eat fucking broccoli as well. then, they get pissed off about that. then, they start lobbying, wasting their time and energy lobbying to everyone that hey, meat is better than broccoli, so we should all eat broccoli. Sorry, we should all eat meat.
then, the next time the vote comes around, and they pool their money and everything, it was like, think about the amount of fucking time and energy we waste doing that. it's trying to use that as a framing for why democracy is bad, because that's a whole other rabbit hole. for me, realistically, I see democracy is the most insidious mechanism of theft that has ever existed. Socialism, communism is bad, but it's overtly bad, and we know it’s bad. It collapses really quickly. Whereas, democracy is this method of leaching from the system, but allowing it to grow to the point where the leech, or the parasite get too big and ends up consuming itself.
[00:26:03] PR: Yeah. I think, that's a tough framing, because I think, most, especially intellectual people, and I'll just interject that, because I do think that's important. Have a favorable view of democracies as [inaudible 00:26:12] values. I do think there's a long history of that. I understand what you're saying. Being mostly true, I would say. I mean, I think if you look at the lineage of different governance structures in history, I think, you could probably argue that, especially when compared to communism, and monarchies and some of these other systems, democracy, just by its imperfections, has served us roughly pretty well.
I think, that's why that's one of the risks that I think, actually injecting this argument, or talking about it further. there's also a lot of unrest about the markets right now. Particularly United States, I would say, that's true.
[00:26:45] AS: There is. I think, this is too deep a rabbit hole to go now. I think, once I finished the actual article, and we've got some threads we can pull on, then we dive into that article. I think, suffice it to say, it's Bitcoin, again, doesn't suffer from the tragedy of the commons, that the world has essentially suffered from, irrespective of whether it was democracy, communism, socialism, fucking name your ism. It doesn't matter. All of them end up suffering from the tragedy of the commons, because the rights can be changed by the majority.
Whereas, Bitcoin doesn't exist in that realm. It is something in which the use of the individual, the owner of the Bitcoin hold something in which the property right is not subject to the whims of the group, the foundation, the majority.
[00:27:30] PR: Well, so let's talk about tactics and a little bit. Because I think, me and you differ a little bit on approach. I would say that, one of the Lightning rods in this conversation has been, and I would say, conversation about Bitcoin maximalism is the shitcoing attitude, that everything that isn't Bitcoin is shitcoin. We talk about them dismissively, sort of aggressively. I'm just wondering your thoughts on that. I know you're a big, staunch proponent of the Bitcoin-shitcoin line.
I try not to use that phrase, but that’s for my own reasons. I'm just curious, how you're thinking about that currently. Do you think that meme has served its time? Or do you think that'll continue to be an important thing in conversations?
[00:28:06] AS: I think, it will continue to be an important thing. I'll use what Ben Kaufman's doing with Clown World Today, as an example. We need to ridicule what's stupid. At this point, I used to get riled up and a lot more emotional about this stuff. I think, I would really, be a little bit more vicious about it. These days, I laugh about it ridicule it. I think, that that framing needs to continue, because that frame is actually one of the frames we can own. The Bitcoin not shitcoin frame is, there is no Ethereum not shitcoin frame. That doesn't exist, right?
I think, that should continue. I think it's hilarious. I think it's funny. I think, one of my favorite things to see on Twitter is this emergence of names, genuinely of fucking players. I love Rob. The memes that came out of the fucking BitCloud thing were the funniest shit I've fucking ever seen in my life, man. it was great. I enjoy that. I think, that needs to continue and I think that is part of what Bitcoin’s spirit is. It is rough. It's raw. It's natural. It's organic. It's the fucking Wild, Wild West. by no means, are we anywhere out of the woods yet.
I made this argument yesterday to our marketing team that does some of the marketing for Amber. They were doing an article and they did the whole little adoption curve bullshit, and they got the button of UI here as somewhere in the middle of early majority. I was like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” We still in the early days of early adopters. We don't touch early majority until one set equals one cent.
that's when we start to move into “some mainstream success,” in a real parabolic move. when people stop thinking about Bitcoin and they start thinking about how many SATs they can accumulate, because 1 cent will buy you a single SAT. When people start to see one SAT, one Satoshi go from 1 cent to 2 cents in a day, which again, mark my word, that will happen this year. Sorry, not this year, but this decade. My bad. It would be nice to have [inaudible 00:30:12].
[00:30:13] PR: I was going to say, yeah. But what do you know?
[00:30:15] AS: Yeah. [Inaudible 00:30:17]. that’s when we start to move into next stage of Bitcoin adoption. Maybe at that point, the number and the saturation of people in around Bitcoin, like the memification, everything will drown out, but that core, I think, will always exist. There’s no, none of this, like there's a time and a place for it. I think, it's fucking beautiful. I think, it's hilarious.
I think, one of the best things people like Murray Rothbard, and all that stuff did to the establishment was basically, ridicule them, but ridicule them intelligently. What I see in memes and the “toxicity” is a deep level of understanding of nuance and intelligent, that is compacted and presented in a fucking meme. it's beautiful. It’s grand. It’s artwork. It is fucking hilarious. I think the Bitcoin shitcoin frame will continue, will subsist. I will definitely be waving the flag for that. I don't give a shit about who I scare away in the process.
[00:31:12] PR: Yeah. I mean, I would just say – I think, I tolerate the shitcoin stuff more. I'm not against it. I think, my only qualm to that is that, I think, it needs to be balanced by argumentation that's also empathetic. That’s the criticism towards Bitcoin maximalism. I'm also a big advocate of Bitcoin toxicity. I'm a big fan of [inaudible 00:31:32] as a whole. Again, I do think, maybe we need a bit more Bitcoin empathy, because in a lot of respects, it is hard to understand these arguments.
There is the original frame that many people are coming to cryptocurrency large is so polluted, and so difficult. You almost have to detox people from these arguments. Yeah, I think that aggression and derision can be a powerful tool. I don't think that anyone's going to argue better than that. I think, for me myself personally, I was faced with a lot of derision against my work over the years, especially during when I was an early journalist, I think that helps shaped my thought. I was able to come to that at face value, objectively asked whether my work was worthy of derision and ultimately, I’d say, a lot of the early stuff, yes, I mean, that was the case.
I don't stand by that stuff now. I think, the extent that I was in a position to do journalism on cryptocurrencies, early on, I probably didn't do great jobs. I do think a lot of people, they don't engage with criticism as well. I mean, this is a society at large, like people don't really engage. Humans are not great animals that engaging with criticism. I think, there does have to be some equal opposite approach. I think, if there's anything I’d say to that, I just like to see it balance out some more, because I think –
[00:32:47] AS: I would just argue that it is balanced, like the horses for courses. I don't know if you guys use this in America.
[00:32:54] PR: I’ve literally never heard that phrase.
[00:32:55] AS: Okay. We use that in in Australia. It just means, each to their own thing. Horses for courses means that there's something for you, something for you, something for you, something for you. it's like, most people will not see a lot of the Bitcoin toxicity. It's like, you need to be in there. A lot of people just won't get the memes, they won't get the jokes and all that stuff. They may come in via one of Reid Love’s articles or something. Then, I'm further down the track with when you read one of my articles, like getting beaten over the head with a stick. It's a little bit different.
I think, we speak to different audiences. I mean, I would argue that in many ways, it is balanced. I mean for example, my girlfriend, I did give her one of my older articles when she first started. Mind you, you look at my evolution. When you go back to my early, early writings about Bitcoin, so back in 2016-17, it was framing Bitcoin through anthropological lens and it was happy, happy, fucking Yuval Harare-inspired, money is a shit fiction, etc., and all this stuff. It's very accessible. That article still to this day, converts people into Bitcoin in a nice way.
Fast forward three years and I’m like, “Fucking burn down the state. Fuck the masses.” All this shit. it's much more violent. I've dug deeper. Now, my audience is no longer the top of the funnel, if we're going to put it in that framing. I think, what that means is as the funnel inevitably gets larger, because more and more people, it's not that they want Bitcoins that they fucking need it. The top of the funnel will always be a little bit more welcoming. There will always be content creators.
[00:34:37] PR: Are you saying that Bitcoin toxicity is bottom of the funnel?
[00:34:40] AS: It is. It really is. It really is. It's like, the closer you get to enlightenment – and this actually is reminiscent of Zen of everything. when you come to a Zen master, the closer you get to the Zen master, the more he beats you over the head with a stick for no fucking reason, until you become enlightened and realize you didn't need the [inaudible 00:34:59] in the first place that you were –
[00:35:00] PR: You’re saying, because you should know better at that point. Therefore, you’re penalized. You should be penalized, because you should know at that point.
[00:35:07] AS: It's a wake-up call. Exactly. It's a wake-up call. this is the case across all sorts of things like this, like masteries is processing. It gets more raw and real, the closer you come to the center. That's the role that maximalism, or toxic, call it maximalism, or what I'm going to try and maybe I can create a term. I think, I'll change mine to Svetski is a Bitcoin extremist, or something like that. I think, it's part of the spectrum.
I don't think it's unbalanced in any way. I think, if anything, it's the duty of people who are more, I guess, eloquent, and objective in their writing, in their speech like you, to reinforce what – let's say, a meme says a 1,000 words, in this one fucking name that makes fun of someone and it's hilarious, and it's a dense piece of information, but 99.9% of people are not going to fucking understand what the hell's going on. then, I would then go and write an article about it that beat people over the head with a stick, which elaborates on the meme. then, you would then write a piece that is more objective and accessible, that brings people into understand that, and then they go down the funnel. Again, I think that's a beautiful process, and it's emerged organically without committee. It's fucking incredible.
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[00:38:28] PR: Let me give you a question. Let me give you a question I'm struggling with right now a little bit. I think, one of the things is that, let's accept this frame that Bitcoin is the strongest technology we have for protecting user rights. Let's say, people at the bottom of the funnel getting hit with your toxicity, they know that. Let's just say, they engage in a known trade-off. They're using some system that they know was weaker.
Let's just say, there's a lot of controversy about the systems being built on Bitcoin, especially when you get into things like stacks, or other liquid, things that are second layer Bitcoin things that maybe don't qualify as Bitcoin. I think, what extent is then it okay for an individual knowledge, in your opinion to make that trade-off, if they do something knowingly?
I guess, the question is, is there ever a case where, let's just assume the person isn't being misrepresented. Let's just assume the project on the other end is completely representing correctly, that they're putting that user in a system where they have weaker rights than Bitcoin. Is it okay for you? Do you think those systems are good and holistic and adding to Bitcoin?
[00:39:28] AS: Okay, so can I rephrase it this way? I'm a Bitcoin maximalist, and I talk about property rights, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then I turn around and use liquid BTC to perform something. Should I be attacked? Is that the question you're asking? Or should I feel –
[00:39:45] PR: Yeah, exactly. To what extent are you – Again, this goes back to agency. I think most Bitcoiners would say, we're trying to free people. We want them to be in a financial system where they have rights. In some cases, some of these systems seem to ask people to trade off those things. My question is, to the extent that they know that trade-off is happening, is that okay? Should we demonize these systems? Liquid is a great example. Liquid, I think, represents the products how it's built. It's a top tier system on Bitcoin. It’s a multisig contract with a federated network that controls the token. If you're going to engage in that system willfully, is that a problem? Is that system a problem to you?
[00:40:26] AS: hell no. Hell no. Hell no. As much as I'm a rabid, fucking toxic, fucking extreme psychopathic, misogynistic, whatever. I'm trying to think of all the things people have called me. [Inaudible 00:40:36] spawn type of Bitcoiner, I think that's perfectly fucking fine. It's your Bitcoin, choose to do with it as you wish. It's one of the beautiful things about Bitcoin. I actually know some really good, solid, fucking Bitcoiners, who to this day, they live out in the middle of fucking nowhere. They don't talk to anybody. They don't interact with the world. They're not really on Bitcoin Twitter. what they do is they are really good traders and they trade shitcoins and they make more Bitcoin, and that's the whole fucking game in life. That's all they care about. power to them. They're like, “No, I fucking hate Ethereum. I hate Vitalik. I hate what it stands for.”
[00:41:10] PR: they are still Bitcoiner. In your book, they still meet the definition of Bitcoiners.
[00:41:15] AS: Yeah. Now look, could they do something better with their lives? Sure, but should they go out and build a Bitcoin company and make a mess of it? Probably not. Because they're probably better at sitting on a computer doing that, surfing and maybe jerking off on Pornhub. It's up to them, whatever they want to do, but they get it.
Now, one could argue and I know data [inaudible 00:41:36] arguments, like trading shitcoins makes you a shitcoiner, because you're giving them liquidity and you’re giving credence. Yes, I get that argument. it's not my job to tell you not to do that. going out, for example, and saying you're a Bitcoin maximalist, but then holding your wealth in Ethereum is a bit, how's it going? That's a bit hypocritical. Maybe flipping some Ethereum and stuff like that. I don't know. That does get a little bit hard. If I pulled back just for a second, is like, to your liquid argument, is there will be products and services that emerge off the top of Bitcoin, that look like liquid, or that are abstractions, even of liquid, etc., that will exist, that offer a clear trade off, and that present themselves as what they are, where you as a individual can make an economic calculation on that trade off.
The reality of the world, and this is something that people like the Keynesian and the democracies of the world and all this shit, the status basically don't understand is that there is trade-offs with decisions. the beauty of Bitcoin at least, is that when a trade-off is made, there's no way to socialize out the backend, a mistake for the bad consequences of a trade-off. if you do go make a trade off, and you do get penalized, if you're either unlucky or stupid, you have no way of being remade whole again by committee, or by the state being able to reproduce, or socialize your loss.
that's what's different about Bitcoin. I fully expect in the coming decade, there would be a lot of coin products, things being built on the Bitcoin stack, etc. In there, to be some bad apples, who misrepresent what they're doing, or mismanage what they're doing, and people will lose that. I expect it to be fucking, like a wild, wild west scenario, where some people lie about it. there will be honest companies that say, this is the trade off and people still do it and they still fucking lose their Bitcoin, etc.
the beauty of it is it'll be natural wealth redistribution by the market, in the sense that the loser does not get made whole again, because they took a trade-off. then, those who didn't make any trade-offs and just held the Bitcoin in cold storage and they never touched it, they're sitting there laughing. They're happy about it, and that's the benefit of it. Then that maybe helps me identify, or at least, things like Ethereum, etc., etc., see, and liquid represents itself as this trade-off for usage, but allow security and custodianship for Bitcoin. Whereas, Ethereum is a completely different pitch. It's like, “No, Bitcoin is shit. We’re better. Come and give us your money, and enrich us.” It's in a different realm again. anyway, I'll shut up there for a second, because I think you had a –
[00:44:22] PR: yeah. Maybe I'll jump in and just say, I think this is something that I still think is confusing, even to me, as someone who's been, I guess, in and around Bitcoin for a while. It does seem we have this weird, unwritten moral code. I think this is implied in a lot of our evangelism that we do divide such stark lines between Bitcoin and shitcoins and things like that. I've struggled with the question of, am I a Bitcoiner? I don't actually know, or pretend to answer that question.
The way that I would look at that, I think, is that anyone is capable at any time of having their incentives put them in a situation where they're not aligned with Bitcoin. I prefer to look at this question, I think, a lot more – just like, you don't exist absolutely as a Bitcoiner. Or, it's merely your place in that space and time. It's like, are your actions aligned with Bitcoin? Or are they not aligned with Bitcoin?
The way that I prefer to look at that is currently, most of my work, or I'd say, a 100% of my work is dedicated right now to furthering Bitcoin, explaining Bitcoin. That's Bitcoin Magazine, helping, cracking with their open source Bitcoin developments. I align my work towards Bitcoin. Does that make me a Bitcoiner? I don't know.
This is where, I think, the absolute distinction of Bitcoin maximalist can be a little bit problematic, because I think, we're already in this conversation referred to other situations, where it does seem situational, and that your decision at any moment could put you out of context with Bitcoin, and that doesn't make you bad per se, but you might not be aligned with Bitcoin. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's how I prefer to look at it.
[00:45:45] AS: It does. For me personally, a little bit of history here. People don't know this, but when I was first building Amber as a Bitcoin-only dollar cost averaging app, I had in the early days, not only did I have an opportunity to do a major ICO. I wanted to do a Binance style ICO in the beginning and all this shit. This was a moral question for me is, people know this part of the story, which is I went away. I took 20 white papers with me that had raised between one to a 100 million, and I went to Byron Bay for a weekend just to relax and rebase and glean the wisdom of people that raised a bunch of money.
I walked out of there, 30 fucking points of IQ less. I literally became stupid. I was like, “What in the fuck is this dribble? What is this?” I just can't in fucking good conscience do this, because I actually care about what Bitcoin means to the world. That was still earlier on in my journey is that, I still really – I had a gut sense about what Bitcoin’s impact in the world would be, but not to the extent that I have today, by no means. Still, my gut was telling me, “Man, there's easy money to be made here, but I can't do this.” I want to be in it, or I think, Bitcoin is going to be here for a long time and blah, blah, blah. I wanted to not sell my soul.
Then later on, when we started building the product, like dude, I had the Dash Foundation offering me money, Litecoin, all these fucking shitcoin companies, they were offering me money to instead of the Bitcoin accumulation app to help people dollar cost average into their shitcoin, I turned on millions of dollars, whilst we were running out of money and I was out there fucking campaigning, selling a chunk of the fucking company for equity, selling equity in the company for fucking dollars. We barely scraped through after 20 hours a day, seven days a week for six months straight, fucking trying to raise in the doldrums of the bear market at the end of 2018, with people fucking waving millions of dollars in front of me saying, “It's okay.”
I almost picture William Wallace getting gutted at the end. It's like, “Just say mercy. Mercy.” Then, you free them. I think, it takes a particular type of character. Now, I could have easily sold my soul and done that, but I didn't. I think, this is where in some senses, I relate to that. There is a bit of bitterness. I must admit, in some senses, I'm like, “Man, maybe I was the dumb shit. I could have fucking pulled a 20 million-dollar ICO. I could have got a bunch of money from all these dickheads and then I could have built a really nice product, because I'm still a product guy. I still know how to run a business.”
This is where maybe ties back into the moral argument about what is Bitcoin and what is a Bitcoiner. It’s like, someone who can refuse temptation and have a strong enough character to do the right thing, irrespective of the temptation that sits there right before you. That I guess, temperance maybe, and I don't know how else to describe it, is rare in the world, and I think that is one of the attributes that I see in Bitcoin is tying it back to who you are as a person in particular circumstances and stuff like that.
It's a tough one. Maybe what it does, the toxic maximalism is there and maybe it's a helpful reminder for ourselves, because maybe if that wasn't – honestly, maybe if that wasn't there, in 2017-2018, maybe if that wasn't there, maybe I would have just been convinced enough to go and take the temptation and say mercy, right? Maybe I would have. I saw that community and I saw what I was passionate about and I've started writing words on fucking paper, reinforcing what I believe. Maybe that together was a big part of the reason why I didn't go and sold my soul to the shitcoin.
[00:49:32] PR: I think, you're talking about toxic maximalism. It was like, the conscience of Bitcoin.
[00:49:36] AS: Yeah. It's like a conscience. Yeah, exactly. It's like the Dr. Dre and Eminem. sitting there, it's like, I don't know. Maybe there's something there.
[00:49:47] PR: Well, let me ask another shitcoin-framing question, because I know again, talking about this divide of worldviews here, it’s like. Something I had to think about recently, to the extent that we can define Bitcoin, let's just again accept the framing of the article that I put out on Forbes, that Bitcoin is the technology that best ensures user right, the money that best ensures the financial rights of individuals.
Now, let's just say that there is this other market of other cryptocurrencies and we can define them as just a broad class of things that offer people with their rights. Let's just cut it clean on the middle right there. Where do you fall politically on the spectrum of, do those things have a right to exist even poorly? I guess, to what extent do you personally – if governments decided to treat that class of cryptocurrencies differently, or come after them, is that something you support? Do you think about that at all? To what extent do you support free markets? Even if this whole class of cryptocurrencies is problematic?
[00:50:37] AS: I completely support anybody rolling their own – Sorry, I don't support them. I support the freedom to go and roll your own shitcoin, and then I support the freedom to people to ridicule you into oblivion. Do I support governments going out with their henchmen and beating people over the head, because their monopoly is being threatened? Actually, no.
simultaneously, I do support the idea that Bitcoiners can laugh with the shitcoiners for that happening. The fact is, one monopolist is threatening – the upcoming monopolist, or want to be monopolist is threatening the existing monopolist. we can sit back with some popcorn and laugh at them, now shitting their pants for pissing off the older lion, I guess. In my mind, yeah, that's how I look at it.
[00:51:24] PR: I guess, I would just say with that frame, I guess, yeah, it's tough. There's a trade-off, right? Because on one hand, we've talked a lot in this conversation about there being a frame of cryptocurrencies and that being the hardest thing to break, and then how do you actually break that? You can evangelize all you want, but at the end of the day, the default view of most people is just, “Oh, I'm on CoinMarketCap. Here's this wall of cryptocurrency that are all seemingly the same.” Would something like a disclaimer, like hey, these other cryptocurrencies do not offer you the same rights as Bitcoin. does Bitcoin deserve greater protection?
Because I think, this is where it gets confusing, right? Because I think, the claim of the cryptocurrency advocates, or the agnostics, as I call them in the article, essentially seems to be that Bitcoin exists. Because Bitcoin is entitled to this designation as this decentralized commodity, we should be benefit from that distinction as well. There does seem to be this relationship happening here, where these other cryptocurrencies are – I think, I wrote this down on my notes somewhere, pretty recently, where I think that most non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies are really always trying to convince you about three things.
One, what they're doing is not Bitcoin. Two, because they're not Bitcoin, they should be able to take greater liberties of your rights. Then three, that the USD market for their coin validates that decision. I think, that has to be the thought process there. this is why I think, the cryptocurrency market itself has become so problematic, because again, I think most of the crypto-agnostics they say, “Oh. Well, this is okay, because the price of our coin is going up. If our price of our coin is going down, it wouldn't be okay.”
I just don't know how to deal with that moral framing, because it seems to be to me, something that seems very alien to me. I don't know why you would – why you would be able to claim that a market is somehow an effective adjudicator of people's rights, or that whether a decision was moral. If you don't think a government can make a moral decision, I’m like, why do you think a market is capable of that?
[00:53:14] AS: That's a big question. before I go into that, I just wanted to mention something about your three categories of what's going through a shitcoiner’s mind when they want to – like, we’re different to Bitcoin, so we can take differently liberties and base the decision to Bitcoin, and is a justification. We've got a market cap. It's really funny how all of a sudden, when governments start to say, “Oh, we're going to start looking into it,” and they're like, “Oh. No, no, no. We are like Bitcoin. Give us the same classification.”
To me, there's a really interesting dynamic here is like, you'll never see Bitcoiners change their narrative to say, “Oh. No, no, no. We’re more like Ethereum,” when it counts. Then, “No, we're less like Ethereum when it doesn't count.” It's always like, “No, we are fucking unlike any of you.” Now, notwithstanding, like you said in the beginning of this discussion, it's like, some people use a poor frame. They go into the cryptocurrency frame to substantiate why Bitcoin is superior.
fundamentally speaking, that Bitcoiner is one who understands that Bitcoin lives in different categories to the rest of these things. what shitcoin is and cryptocurrency and crypto-agnostic enthusiasts do is they flip-flop between, we’re like Bitcoin when someone is chasing us and wanting to enforce something, like the existing monopolist wants to do something, but we're unlike Bitcoin if the existing monopolist is not peering into our affairs, which is that is very telling.
The other piece there is like, Bitcoiners aren't really too concerned with again, what the government can and cannot do with Bitcoin. I think, the government, had they been able to do anything about Bitcoin, would have done something about it back in the days of Silk Road when Bitcoin was $10. We are well beyond their capacity to make a dent, or hurt Bitcoin. The only thing they can do is disable some individual's capacity to acquire Bitcoin, which will only create a black market, so they'll find another way to acquire it anyway.
It's like, the government's are in a catch 22 with respect to Bitcoin specifically, but they're not in a catch 22 with respect to any other fucking cryptocurrency, because that whole space has an operational framework that exists in the old realm. Bitcoin doesn't operate in this realm, so they lack the capacity to do anything about Bitcoin. They do not lack the capacity to come down on the rest of the shitcoiners, whether it's from Ethereum, all the way down the fucking list. They can do whatever the fuck they want. that really, I think, is a nice indicator for the fact that these two things live in a different class. They're different galaxies.
[00:55:50] PR: I think to what you were saying about the crypto market, that's why I think you asked, well, what's the state going to do in that situation? I think, it increasingly seemed obvious to me that you'll take advantage of the cryptocurrency market, which is why I've been a bit keen recently to start probing Bitcoiners to start developing argumentation. Let's just say, hypothetically, one day, Bitcoin is not number one on CoinMarketCap for whatever fucking reason. It doesn't matter.
You assume that the CoinMarketCap doesn't operate on logic anyway. You know what I mean? I feel a lot of Bitcoin mass was like, you log on CoinMarketCap and it feels good that Bitcoin is number one, right? in some way, it reinforces our belief. I think, my worry is that we've become addicted to that. I mean, I think, Pierre pushed back on me about that and he said, “Well, Bitcoin will always be the number one. It's the most supreme.” I think, Rodolfo presented some criticism of this, where he's like, “If Bitcoin fails to get liquidity, then it's just failing.” To me, it's like CoinMarketCap is such an absurd structure. It's almost devoid of any logic, or reasoning. It's just the big list of random coins, times by their price and gaining some market cap.
I don't find it impossible to think there'll be some situation someday, where Bitcoin is let's just say, number two on that list for any reason. However illogical. I think, I worry about the current state of the Bitcoiner, because I think that – I don't know if we're psychologically prepared for that attack. To me, it's like, that's what I would do, obviously. If I were going to try to come after you, I would hit you where it hurts. I think for a lot of Bitcoiners, it is this idea that Bitcoin is number one, which is why the thing that I like about the user rights argument is that it removes that for an issue for me, I think. Well, if Bitcoin is number two, are you still a Bitcoin maximalist? The answer is yes. It's still the best tool for ensuring financial rights.
[00:57:36] AS: Individual sovereignty. Yeah. Dude, you touched on
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