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 large at Kraken and contributor at Forbes, to discuss Bitcoin Maximalism and its relation to moral values.
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Pete Rizzo: It’s very common for cultures to reclaim words and often cultures reclaim words that are expressly used as insults against them as a way to venerate their culture. This is something very common to most cultures. And if you think about another culture in the United States, it’s probably very easy for you to think of examples like that.
So, I think Bitcoin maximalism is something that needs to be reclaimed a bit because I do think that we should want to extend Bitcoin. We should want to do that. If we don’t … then the whole thing becomes logically inconsistent.
P: You’re making a point that it needs to be more than just a reaction to a word that has a negative connotation, we have to define what it means.
Rizzo: And I think the crypto world should not resent that, because it is actually better for any type of cryptographic network that we’re building here, it’s better for it to be built on Bitcoin because it’s more trust minimized, like it benefits all bitcoin holders equally, there’s no like opaque, like foundations and third parties, whatever.
So if it is better to build something on Bitcoin, then the goal of us as human beings who are aligned to the most positive outlook for humanity should be to build those things on Bitcoin… In that case, Bitcoin Maximalists are antagonistic to the … crypto world…
And my argument here would be, we’ve become very focused on the negative stuff, we’ve become very concerned about who has done the least amount of bad things and what those bad things that you shouldn’t do are, and then calling out people for those bad things and then shaming them for those bad things…
P: I think another way of framing that is, it’s kind of a scarcity mindset versus an abundance mindset. Like, are you focused on how to avoid punishment versus trying to challenge yourself…
Rizzo: I think that like there exists this weird dichotomy where it’s, you know, if we’re not doing anything 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, then you are enabling their use and you’re allowing them to exist.
And if they’re always going to exist, then why would you cast judgment on them? They’re just always going to exist. What’s the use in hating them? They’re just gonna continue to be useful. So it is actually your action that matters, and it is true that we can do everything that the cryptocurrencies are doing on Bitcoin over enough time and with enough reason and logic, then that should be the highest aspiration.