Are “Bitcoin Maximalists” Toxic?

You've probably heard the term "maximalist" or "bitcoin maximalist," especially if you're on social media. These are people who claim to be maximalists in the sense that they swear only (or almost only) by bitcoin.

What you need to understand before continuing with this article is that "Bitcoin maximalists" are on a broad spectrum. Some are more radical than others. Some are so extreme in their ideas that, for them, all other cryptocurrencies are nothing more or less than " shitcoins"

In fact, these sometimes exacerbated criticisms of the crypto industry are considered by some to be "toxic". Some "bitcoin maxi" can be aggressive in their remarks and thereby prevent the development of certain projects by systematically stigmatizing them as shitcoin. It is in this sense that we speak of the "toxicity" of bitcoin maxi.

Let’s dig in and see if bitcoin maxes are really toxic…

What Do Bitcoin Maximalists Want?

For the "maxi", Bitcoin does not have the same purpose as other cryptocurrencies and should not be confused with other cryptocurrencies. It is different in several aspects: technical, philosophical, social etc. Bitcoin is not a company, has no director, no marketing team unlike other cryptocurrencies which are stricto sensu enterprises.

Bitcoin maximalism can be described as not current, a belief or even an ideology. In the same way that in a political party, maximalists group together with the same set of values.

For maxi, Bitcoin must be a monetary type cryptocurrency that can replace FIAT currency. The means and end of bitcoin would be to be a reserve currency just likeor For example. For them, there is no point in creating other cryptocurrencies. We must focus on the cypherpunk ideology which defines the creation of bitcoin, namely giving change

Understand that radical maximalists do not want Bitcoin to grow to host applications of decentralized finance, with games or NFTs, for example.

Who are the most famous bitcoin “maximalists”?

We can represent them with eyes from which red lasers come out or eating meat, but overall to know a maximum bitcoin, we will be interested in their speech. Here are the best-known bitcoin maximalists, those who claim to be such and those for whom their speech and actions are 100% oriented towards Bitcoin.

Nayib Bukele: Among the best-known bitcoin maxi, we can cite the president of El Salvador : Nayib Bukele. He decided to legalize bitcoin as a means of payment and he also decided to buy one bitcoin per day for his country's bitcoin treasury. By his attitude, very clearly, Nayib Bukele is one of the representatives of the maxi.

–>Read the article: Nayib Bukele: “Stop drinking the Kool-Aid of the elites”

Michael saylor : We can also cite Michael saylor, the founder of the company MicroStrategy, a software publisher who has become a very popular ambassador for Bitcoin. He has also financed numerous companies linked to Bitcoin. He shares a lot of pro-bitcoin content.

Andreas Antonopolous : He was one of the first bitcoin evangelists by launching his YouTube channel in 2012. He is a strong supporter of bitcoin and has contributed enormously to making bitcoin known to as many people as possible.

Jack Dorsey: He is the co-founder of the social network Twitter and Square. He has also funded many projects related to Bitcoin and other related projects such as the decentralized social network Nostr. He remains one of the best known figures of bitcoin maxi.

Most bitcoin maxi share the desire to make bitcoin a universal reserve currency like gold. This is also the speech of Saif Ammous, one of the best known bitcoin maxi who wrote the free evocative "The Bitcoin Standard". It is indeed a book that has allowed the philosophy of bitcoin maxi to be disseminated to the greatest number.

As a general rule, we find among the bitcoin maximalists, the first players in Bitcoin (buyers, miners, developers, etc.). These are often (not always) the people who knew about bitcoin well before the vast majority. These are, overall, early adopters and among them there are what we call "whales"Either those who own the most bitcoin in the world.

What can we criticize about bitcoin maximalists?

Unlike maximalists, there are bitcoiners who think on the contrary that Bitcoin must evolve. For them, Bitcoin is being held hostage by a dangerous minority who do not want to evolve Bitcoin as it should be for them.

They then want more innovations on the network. They are even very often supporters of bitcoin and would like to take advantage of its robustness to create Dapps on it. This is particularly the case of the Stacks project which relies on the bitcoin network to create cryptocurrencies on the scale of a city: city corners. Thus, the " Miami corner » is a cryptocurrency hosted on an additional layer (layer 2) built on the bitcoin network. This is the perfect example of the misuse of bitcoin. And there are many examples like that…

For the opponents of the maximalists, if Bitcoin does not evolve, it will necessarily regress. We deprive the network of new capital and even collective intelligence.

“Despite what toxic maximalists believe, Bitcoin will not magically continue to increase in value […] The data shows that people are already using Ethereum more, as reflected in transaction fees and operations.”
Diwaker Gupta (https://builtin.com/blockchain/bitcoin-maximalist)

For the opponents of the maximalists, blockchains with concrete applications will be the most used blockchains. This attracts more developers, more people, more uses and it helps provide solutions for different industries. For detractors of maxi, it can be dangerous not to create other cryptocurrencies. This would lead to sclerosis of thebitcoin ecosystem...

When did we first hear about bitcoin maxi?

10 years ago, in the early days of bitcoin, everyone was a maximalist (by default). Indeed, to the extent that there was only bitcoin, we could only be maximalist.

It is over time, and with the arrival of altcoins and other blockchains (faster, more scalable, more ecological, etc.) that bitcoiners have split into different groups. There was a first article from Vitalik Buterin its blog who popularized the term "bitcoin maxi." He wrote an article " In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism » to respond to those who were detaching themselves from Bitcoin…

Even though Vitalik Buterin defends the maxis in his article, he has long crystallized the "hatred" of bitcoin maxis who did not agree with the creation of Ethereum. Of course.

Source: https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/04/01/maximalist.html

Then, it is especially with the bitcoin scalability problem that there were splits among bitcoiners. This resulted in what is called the " Block Size War " with the debate over whether or not Bitcoin should be evolved and the block size increased. This eventually led to the creation of Bitcoin Cash and it was also at that moment that we saw that there were some more conservative than others….

->Understanding bitcoin scalability

How can max bitcoins be toxic?

Consider that all other cryptocurrencies are shitcoins and bashing all projects simply because it's not Bitcoin. Maybe it's excessive like all extremes.

In this sense, maximalists would be toxic because they would not participate in (or encourage) the world of cryptocurrencies to develop.

Certainly, there are a lot of scams and a lot of bogus projects that rely on Ponzi, but that is also part of the evolution of the industry. It is still an experimental laboratory. It's normal that it's shaky sometimes. It's normal for impostors to try to steal from new users. It is by working on it, it is by sharing ideas, by debating, by correcting errors that we improve things (in any case, from a scientific point of view).

Why can the toxicity of maxi be good?

In absolute terms and depending on the degree of radicality, we can also say that a maximalist bitcoin is not toxic for the bitcoin and crypto ecosystem in general. Radicalism comes from good because it took a maximalist bitcoin army for bitcoin to be where it is now. Maxis also serve as safeguards and prevent the spread of bogus, uninteresting projects...

Without maxi bitcoins, perhaps the crypto industry would be even more harmful with "degens" (degenerates) even more powerful and influential...The maxis make Bitcoin known and help us to better understand its objective and its foundations.

—>Read the article: Have we all become monkey traders (“APEs”)?

Ultimately, isn’t it the most moderate who advance the Bitcoin cause?

In fact, radicals (those who think all other cryptos are scams) are a minority. They make a lot of noise on the networks but they do not represent the majority.

The vast majority (who are silent) would like to see bitcoin grow and go beyond its status as a "safe haven" or digital gold.

In fact, some will take the example of Blackberry, Yahoo or even Nokia which were very successful companies before completely failing for lack of innovation. Some people think this can happen to Bitcoin if it doesn't evolve. For example, since proposals to modify Bitcoin were accepted (with difficulty by bitcoin maxi in fact), the network is doing better.

The best example is the Lightning Network which then allows BTC to be sent at a lower cost and instantly. This would not have been possible without having agreed to modify and evolve Bitcoin… Now, Bitcoin can then be used on a larger scale as a means of payment, and it was necessary to “modify” it to achieve this…

This is why, ultimately and paradoxically, it is rather the moderates who are advancing the Bitcoin cause. Moderate people are perhaps those who, ultimately, participate the most in the ever-increasing adoption in the world...

View the video version of this article at Bitcoin Maxi: