This is an opinion editorial by Shinobi, a self-taught educator in the Bitcoin space and tech-oriented Bitcoin podcast host.
What is Bitcoin Maximalism? People will not stop asking this question, either to defend it as a virtuous label, or to attack it as a symbol of everything wrong and rotten in this ecosystem. This question is as meaningless in my opinion as asking:
- “What is a liberal?”
- “What is a conservative?”
- “What is a Christian?”
No one is going to have the same definition, or same notion. Those labels will always mean completely different things to different people. They will be associated with different identities, different behaviors, different morals and values. No matter what a dictionary or definition says in the strict sense, there will never be consensus around them.
It is completely and utterly meaningless in a discussion on a topic like this to fixate so much on labels, attempting to universally apply them to everyone, instead of focusing on the actual conceptual core of the conversation. The root of this issue has nothing whatsoever to do with labels, and everything to do with behaviors. So let’s talk about the behaviors.
One of the core behaviors commonly associated with Maximalism is a focus on bitcoin. Bitcoin is the longest running project in this ecosystem. It is the most sound system compared to everything developed thus far, and is extremely conservative in its approach to changes and upgrades. While everything in this space in terms of assets is…
