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Copy that. Sidechains and other technology allows entrepreneurs to copy most feature of a cool Altcoin. Like Smart Contracts? Like privacy? As a donation to the community that experimentation is cool, as an investment thesis less so. Lightning Network. This crushes the BCH pitch that the only way to scale Bitcoin into a currency for daily spending is to increase the block size.
The "will Lightning Network work in practice? Flight to safety from both directions. Coming from Fiat, Bitcoin is an Antifragile bet against central bank money printing. Coming from Altcoins, Bitcoin is safe haven while still believing in Cryptocurrency. Ethereum is a wonderful technology innovation.
If Proof of Stake really works in Ethereum, Ethereum could become a true public alternative currency because Proof Of Work is expensive. But that is like saying that if we can easily transport solar energy we can get off fossil fuels - easier said than done. Watch this space, this is a wild card. Yep, thought so. To show that they are hip to new technology, they often spout the line that Bitcoin is bad, but Blockchain is good.
Even Warren Buffet is saying this. Another famous, super smart Legacy Finance titan I am being polite by not naming him was heard on CNBC trash-talking Bitcoin but lauding the underlying Bitchain technology. When they learn that Blockchain can be both Permissioned and Permissionless, they come down on the Permissioned side and trash-talk the Permissionless solutions. Then when Oracle proposes a distributed database version of their RDBMS that they call a Permissioned Blockchain solution, the Legacy Finance titan can sagely nod their assent in the board meeting.
This could be like trying to find Facebook killers in the social media era. Even if there is a Bitcoin killer out there, your chances of finding it or finding the Fund that will find it is statistically tiny. If you agree that finding the Bitcoin killer is too high risk, the lower risk approach could be to take a passive index approach and invest in all Altcoins.
Altcoins are early stage ventures where 1 winner can make up for 99 losers. What if the 1 winner does not do a Token but raises conventional early stage equity capital? You have 99 losers and no winner. This makes sense as an investment thesis, even if it does not sound super exciting.
This strategy requires classic early stage investing skills. The problem is that backing a first time fund is high risk and the top tier funds are not open to new investors. Another argument for the maximalist perspective is the principle that new financial instruments must face a high barrier to building investor trust. Even as digital currencies have become exponentially more popular, there are still many major financial institutions and individual investors that prefer to bow out of the market.
Bitcoin maximalists believe that the process of integrating digital currencies fully into the world of mainstream finance and investing will be a slow one. As a result, outsiders are likely to pay the most careful attention to the oldest, most popular, and most established networks. In the case of digital currencies, the most established is Bitcoin.
With dozens of new, untested digital currencies emerging, Bitcoin has a strong advantage in that it has proven reliability and success. When other cryptocurrency networks suffer from hacks or other negative publicity, Bitcoin maximalists tend to see this as further evidence in support of their argument. A final argument for the maximalist philosophy has to do with diversification within a cryptocurrency or broader portfolio. Because the price of Bitcoin tends to influence the price of the altcoin world more broadly, investing in altcoins may be a questionable way of diversifying one's cryptocurrency holdings.
The argument then follows that investors would be better off investing in a best-of-breed asset, such as Bitcoin, instead of risking their money by investing in other coins or tokens. However, Bitcoin's rise in price has not always driven altcoins higher but maximalists might argue that's due to the inferior quality of altcoins.
Bitcoin maximalism has its hurdles to overcome if Bitcoin is to become the only digital currency. Many of the altcoins and the subsequent variations of blockchain networks have come into existence because of the limitations of the Bitcoin network and its cryptocurrency. Some of the challenges and limitations of Bitcoin include the following:. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin use a proof-of-work PoW process to verify transactions done on the blockchain.
Those who are responsible for verifying the transactions and ensuring that they're accurate are called miners. Miners act as the auditors of the network by verifying the legitimacy of the transactions and help to prevent fraud. As new transactions are added to the blockchain, copies are sent to all of the nodes, which are the participants and computers on the network.
However, as Bitcoin's popularity grows, so too does the volume of transactions. If we think of a blockchain network as a shared database, the more data that's added, the more the system gets bogged down leading to latency. As a result, an enormous amount of energy is needed to process the growing volume of transactions. For example, the amount of power needed to secure the Bitcoin blockchain is getting so large that, as of , it exceeds the total amount of energy consumption of the country of Pakistan.
The latency or slowness within Bitcoin's blockchain is preventing the scalability of the cryptocurrency. In other words, Bitcoin's scalability issue is preventing it from being accepted for widespread use for financial transactions since it cannot handle the volume. As a result, other blockchain networks and their cryptocurrencies are needed, which punches a hole in the Bitcoin maximalist ideology. Another challenge to Bitcoin becoming a widely-used method of payment is that the cryptocurrency's price fluctuates too wildly—called volatility.
If the price fluctuates too wildly, it makes it difficult for companies and individuals to use crypto as a medium of exchange for day-to-day business transactions. In the early years, Bitcoin was limited in its usage and didn't provide mechanisms for building smart contracts and decentralized applications dApps , which other blockchains are specifically designed to support.
A smart contract is a self-executing contract that contains the terms of an agreement between a buyer and a seller, which is written in computer code. The digital code controls the terms and the execution of the transaction. Smart contracts allow transactions to be done between two parties, such as the purchase or sale of an automobile.
As a result, there is no centralized authority needed since the contract is only executable if both parties perform the duties required in the contract. Smart contracts, which are used in the Ethereum blockchain network, have gained popularity within the financial sector. Although Bitcoin's blockchain network has increased its capability by offering smart contracts, it lags behind Ethereum for financial transactions.
Over the past several years, blockchain networks have been established by businesses and industries. These alternative blockchain networks don't necessarily require the cryptocurrencies that are commonly traded today. Instead, these businesses are creating their own networks and cryptocurrencies to be used privately by a specific group of participants.
For example, a banking group, led by the Union Bank of Switzerland UBS , has developed a sandbox, which allows them to explore the uses of blockchain technology for payments within the financial sector. The USC would operate in a way that's similar to cash since it could be converted on a one-to-one basis into a fiat currency, such as the U.
The USC would also be backed by a central bank, which is in stark contrast to Bitcoin's cryptocurrency. In other words, the financial sector has bypassed Bitcoin's blockchain and cryptocurrency by creating its own network, which can be used for payments between customers, businesses, and for bank-to-bank transfers. Bitcoin maximalists would claim that any issues with the Bitcoin blockchain can be solved and are currently in development.
Whether governments, companies, and investors opt for Bitcoin's blockchain versus the many other options will likely determine whether Bitcoin maximalists will win out in the end. However, given the investment in other networks and cryptos, it's looking like there will be many other cryptocurrencies for years to come.
Ethereum Foundation Blog. Bitcoin White Paper. University of Cambridge, Centre for Alternative Finance. Accessed May 21, Personal Finance. Your Money. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Table of Contents Expand. Table of Contents. What Is a Bitcoin Maximalism? Understanding Bitcoin Maximalism.
Reasons for Bitcoin Maximalism. Concerns About Bitcoin Maximalism. Future of Bitcoin Maximalism. Key Takeaways Bitcoin maximalists believe that Bitcoin is the only digital asset that will be needed in the future. Bitcoin maximalists believe that all other digital currencies are inferior to Bitcoin.
However, Bitcoin's scalability issue has led to the development of other blockchain networks that can handle an increased volume of transactions.
Sarah: "It's great to see such a vibrant and open community developing Ethereum. I think I'd like to get involved. All other shit coins will go to zero, why bother with Ethereum? Secondly, the DeFi applications are cool, not to mention there are countless applications being built on it, I feel Ethereum will continue to have a bright future. Look, give lightening network like 20 years, and I promise you'll regret going to Ethereum.
Bitcoin Maximalism consists of an exceptionally pragmatic individual who recognizes all shitcoins are inflationary to Bitcoin. Bitcoin Maximalists are quick to call out ALT coin scammers who peddle ample amounts of technobabble and hopium to those who are less knowledgeable under the guise of being technologists.
There's a large amount of people wishing to pump and dump shitcoins who wish to silence or discredit Bitcoin Maximalists. The "accepted" answer is but one example They are such a Bitcoin Maximalist My shitcoin is going to the moon! A high IQ, high energy Bitcoin-loving warrior who knows that most any other coin has been created to steal money from the ignorant. They are considered to be well versed, heavily educated and hated by scammers and shillers. A bitcoin maximalist will come in hot in almost any discussion and will answer coherently, due to their likely thousands of hours of learning and research on Bitcoin and alts.
Quick to call out BS from scammers and shillers who are focused on luring un-knowledgable newbies into buying their alt-coin coins made after Bitcoin aka " Shitcoins ". Ethereum was a pre-mined ICO , so you're essentially paying for something that the Ethereum Devs printed out of thin air to get rich.
Not to mention Ethereum is near impossible to run a full node , and it has a figurehead that calls all the shots. Bitcoin is immutable and the code cannot be changed without everyone agreeing, and it has no figurehead. You sound like a Bitcoin Maximalist Steve, I think you just made me into one too! How much time did you spend learning all this stuff? It was early bitcoin developer Hal Finney's reasoning back in that any alternative currency that would be capable of replacing bitcoin as the dominant monetary system, would shake the system's legitimacy.
This is because other competing ideas could also replace those that can replace Bitcoin. Therefore his conclusion was that they would become illegitimate to claim any position due to inferior properties and since such an event would shake everyone's trust, placing investments and further trust into them would prove less likely in the future. Hal's comments are among some of the earliest notable mentions of the soon-to-be "Maximalist" movement that would polarize the cryptocurrency space.
Bitcoiners from early to had no coined term for their Bitcoin-only ideology. When Vitalik used "maximalist" as a derogatory term against Bitcoiners, it ended up being the perfect term to fill the void that existed for the concept for many years. As some would say, Bitcoiners turned the term against its maker because it was made with ill intent, and ever since then it has been a de-facto term for claiming personal value based superiority.
The term itself might be in a negative connotation but the way it managed to fit in among bitcoiners is now considered a good description when it is used for one individual. Bitcoin's whitepaper was released in October to a cryptography mailing list by a pseudonymous cypherpunk named Satoshi Nakamoto. The whitepaper explained a purposed solution to the double spend problem.
This kickoff of the network was completely unique because the only other people who were interested in the idea of a completely sovereign digital currency at the time were the cypherpunks. In a now legendary tweet and the first historical mention of Bitcoin on twitter Hal Finney announced that he was "Running bitcoin", mining days after the initial launch.
The financial crisis likely played a big role in motivating Satoshi to solve the problem of taking money out of the hands of the government and putting it back into the hands of the people. Satoshi received no funding for the start of Bitcoin and is rumored to have mined over , bitcoin that are still lying dormant, unspent on the Bitcoin blockchain ever since his disappearance.
Miners were spending money on hardware and electricity to mine bitcoins, with no guarantee that the coins they received would ever have value. The system Satoshi created was left to be slowly and organically adopted by curious users, who lost a lot of bitcoins on broken hard drives and other boating accidents along the way.
Eventually speculators started arriving and it began gaining serious ground with its adoption and speculative capital. Many projects in the crypto space have adopted a similar mentality not understanding that Zuck's motto is a philosophy you can't apply to a global reserve currency. While copycat blockchains are praised for constantly pushing the envelope with new developments, Bitcoin moves slower.
To date, no project has ever gained as much traction or adoption as Bitcoin has. The value of a network is directly proportional to the square number of nodes connected to this network. Each additional node increases the number of potential connections exponentially, making the network more valuable.
Bitcoin has never been hacked in its almost 13 year history. Not all blockchains have been so fortunate. In July , Ethereum infamously experienced an attack that drained 3. The fallout of the hack caused a split in the Ethereum network, hard-forking into two coins: Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, with Ethereum Classic choosing to maintain the original un-hacked blockchain.
Furthermore, not only has Bitcoin never been hacked, it has never suffered any downtime since In total, Bitcoin has been functional for Game-theoretically, people will only abandon the largest network if they're quite sure that the majority of the network will leave with them, creating yet another incentive to stay home in Bitcoin.
If another 'relatively stable cryptocurrency with low inflation' comes around, it'll have to convince a majority of stakeholders miners, Wall Street firms, Latin American governments, developers, node operators, ETF issuers, the SEC, etc to abandon Bitcoin in favour of this new coin. Since the Bitcoin ecosystem has developed, many big companies now exist that also have a vested interest in the continued development and maintenance of the Bitcoin Network.
What Is a Bitcoin Maximalism? Bitcoin maximalists. Bitcoin maximalism is a phrase often attributed to Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin who – as a bitcoiner in – described the emerging. Toxic bitcoin maximalism has been in the spotlight. For the past few days noted bitcoin booster Udi Wertheimer has been kicking the cyber.