I am concerned that while Bitcoin may have arrived at the best technical solutions and may have the largest network effect, we are losing the social battle for adoption. Bitcoin was once unheard of, and when I mentioned it to people, I was met with confusion. Now, I am met with hostility. People are actively hostile towards something that has already been explained to them by people who hate Bitcoin. The first ten minutes of the conversation are debunking easily debunked talking points they have already been given "Bitcoin is bad for the environment", "Bitcoin is only used by criminals", etc. All the Bitcoin messaging I do see out in the wild is focused on gains chasing, investing, ETFs, etc. Much of it is about comparing Bitcoin to other coins on technical basis without going into the philosophy or values of Bitcoin which are IMO much more important, because they explain why we don't want 1,000 TPS on main chain.
There are some developments in this space, at least in the USA. We do now have a bipartisan PAC funding politicians who are crypto friendly. We do now have some lobbying groups. We have a few CEOs who are willing to spread the gospel of satoshi on MSNBC etc. But what we don't have is good messaging in most public squares. This is a thing I would love to contribute financially to solving, but I have found it hard to find places to give money to for this purpose.
I think it is easy to dismiss concerns that we are "losing the social war" as irrelevant. Bitcoin continues to grow every year, it will keep growing, people will adopt it as it becomes more dominant. But even if everybody switched to Bitcoin overnight, if they do not understand the values that underpin the network and what Bitcoin's promise truly is, Bitcoin can lose its way and turn into just another shitcoin. We will end up with contentious forks. You can point at the rules and incentives built into the network all you want, and they can fend off a lot of attacks and problems, but ultimately Bitcoin is a social currency, it is dependent on people to run, its system of rules is democratic as a basis, if we end up with too many people who want to change the rules to make it more like something else, that will happen.
Would be interested in hearing rebuttals/thoughts on this topic. And also ways I can help fund social outreach if it exists.
makeasnek /
npub12xg…32x5
2024-02-05 11:30:06
in reply to nevent1q…pald
Author Public Key
npub12xgsu4nad7np6l3e9x8exf26evs202jqkc2ghnuyw4c7hrda9cmqkf32x5Published at
2024-02-05 11:30:06Event JSON
{
"id": "47a1384ea96d1caeb66249e5d7297a01290201fd6f666b73da18e21ae845806b",
"pubkey": "51910e567d6fa61d7e39298f93255acb20a7aa40b6148bcf847571eb8dbd2e36",
"created_at": 1707129006,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"33d6e25d9a4569dc41a28295eff58608c8d32494d0a8c18d952adb3cc8b3ec10",
"root"
],
[
"p",
"58ead82fa15b550094f7f5fe4804e0fe75b779dbef2e9b20511eccd69e6d08f9"
]
],
"content": "I am concerned that while Bitcoin may have arrived at the best technical solutions and may have the largest network effect, we are losing the social battle for adoption. Bitcoin was once unheard of, and when I mentioned it to people, I was met with confusion. Now, I am met with hostility. People are actively hostile towards something that has already been explained to them by people who hate Bitcoin. The first ten minutes of the conversation are debunking easily debunked talking points they have already been given \"Bitcoin is bad for the environment\", \"Bitcoin is only used by criminals\", etc. All the Bitcoin messaging I do see out in the wild is focused on gains chasing, investing, ETFs, etc. Much of it is about comparing Bitcoin to other coins on technical basis without going into the philosophy or values of Bitcoin which are IMO much more important, because they explain why we don't want 1,000 TPS on main chain.\n\nThere are some developments in this space, at least in the USA. We do now have a bipartisan PAC funding politicians who are crypto friendly. We do now have some lobbying groups. We have a few CEOs who are willing to spread the gospel of satoshi on MSNBC etc. But what we don't have is good messaging in most public squares. This is a thing I would love to contribute financially to solving, but I have found it hard to find places to give money to for this purpose.\n\nI think it is easy to dismiss concerns that we are \"losing the social war\" as irrelevant. Bitcoin continues to grow every year, it will keep growing, people will adopt it as it becomes more dominant. But even if everybody switched to Bitcoin overnight, if they do not understand the values that underpin the network and what Bitcoin's promise truly is, Bitcoin can lose its way and turn into just another shitcoin. We will end up with contentious forks. You can point at the rules and incentives built into the network all you want, and they can fend off a lot of attacks and problems, but ultimately Bitcoin is a social currency, it is dependent on people to run, its system of rules is democratic as a basis, if we end up with too many people who want to change the rules to make it more like something else, that will happen.\n\nWould be interested in hearing rebuttals/thoughts on this topic. And also ways I can help fund social outreach if it exists.",
"sig": "f750ca8593fb0f18874fb8de82b4a6c82fd54889c0915002a8bd6669ad5fe305d9d22e963c8c32fd9a1585c386002b01efb914104ea8d4e4e86dba7f8c3915f0"
}