Leaving the Bitcoin Religion with Nic Carter

I think Bitcoin maximalism is a genuinely like toxic, cancerous thing that harms Bitcoin. And to the extent I can harm that, I'm very happy to do my part.

Hey Bankless Nation, this is a pre-recorded State of the Nation episode. Super excited to talk to Nick Carter. In fact, David, we've already done that. Nick, um, I think people have thought of him as a Bitcoin maximalist in the past. And he recently got lit up by the Bitcoin Maximalists and is officially, I might call it, leaving the Bitcoin Maximalist religion. Maybe he was never really a part in the first place, but people thought he was. And uh the first part of this episode, we go over that story, then we touch on some macro themes, we talk a little bit about the bear market, we talk about BlockFi and Celsius and the concept of free uh banking that Nick has uh been in favor of in the past. A lot of great insights from Nick in this episode. What were some of your thoughts?

Yeah, you'll see the intelligence that Nick brings to the table in the second half of the show. And I think he always frames this things in like Austrian economics, uh like free banking, like you said, uh, and like and also the role of gold throughout the world. And then he also has this intrinsic interest in Bitcoin. And so people have associated Nick Carter as being like, okay, when he talks about global macro politics, when he talks about Austrian economics, it's coming from the place of a Bitcoiner. When actually the mistake, that was a mistake. It was actually coming from the place of Nick Carter. Uh and so people have like thought of Nick Carter as Nick Carter the Bitcoiner, or Nick Carter the Bitcoin maximalist, when in r again, in reality, is just Nick Carter. Uh and so Nick, when uh Nick and his uh VC fund, Castle Island, announces this investment in like this Web3 wallet with identity verification with a wallet-based sign-in. Uh the the Bitcoiners are like uh the the the cyber hornets, if you will, come and descend upon him uh just by this association that this super, super smart guy who also likes Bitcoin, therefore, as a Bitcoin maximist, turns out to not be true, the Bitcoin culture descends. But like it's one story to talk about this as just like this was what was going on on like the crypto Twitter milieu during the bear market. But the more interesting thing is about the way that Bitcoin works as a narrative. And this is where we conclude that conversation, where there's a relationship between Bitcoin, the code, and the culture that arises on top of it and what how the asset actually manifests in real life. And I think it's if you can extrapolate it, the listener, extrapolate it to the tribe that you're probably in, dependent on what your chain you're on, or the token that you like, depending on what DeFi app that you enjoy the most. You could also find all of these truths in whatever organization that you find yourself a part of. So it's one part a story of the hap what happened on crypto Twitter recently, but it's also something else that you can extrapolate into the wider world of crypto, because that's how this thing operates. And then we get into Nick's very well informed thoughts about the macro world, uh, this coming decade, how is this bear market the same, how is it mostly different, uh, and like what he's doing about it.

Yeah, I think this is a story of tribalism. It's also a story of Bitcoin. So if you're really interested in learning more about Bitcoin culture as it is in 2022, there's no one that understands it better than Nick Carter. I mean, he's kind of a historian of the Bitcoin culture world, and he's been in the trenches as well. So uh fantastic episode coming up for you. Uh, we also wanted to tell you about our friends at Juno. Juno is a crypto friendly banking app. You can open a checking account on Juno. What's funny about this is you're hearing from bankless, we are telling you you should go open a bank account. But that's exactly what you should do because Juno is a DeFi friendly, a crypto friendly bank account. They even allow you to exit your funds to layer two directly. Does your Wells Fargo account do that? Does your Bank of America account do that? No, you need a bank account that is crypto friendly for the 21st century, and I think all creative uh crypto natives need something like Juno in their lives. David, what more would you say about Juno?

Yeah, not only does your Wells Fargo not give let you like go on to an Ethereum layer two straight from your checking count to a layer two in seconds. That's crazy. Also six percent on your USDC. Ryan, what percentage are you getting in your Wells Fargo account?

Uh well sir, I'm making uh point zero one percent in my Wells Fargo savings account at the moment.

Those are different numbers. You can also get Ether and BTC clocking in at 3% as well. And they also have a MasterCard debit card that's metal, because everyone likes the metal cards these days. And so if you sign up with Juno and you make your crypto deposit into your crypto side of the on Juno account, they'll give you $10. If you make a direct deposit into Juno on the checking side of your Juno account, they'll give you $100. And then what you do is you send that $100 over to the crypto side, straight to a layer two of your choice. Optimism, Obutrum, Polygon, CK Sync is coming, and Starknet is also coming. You can sign up. There's a link in the show notes, Juno.finance slash bankless.

And that's if you set up direct deposit, which is super cool. That means you receive your paycheck partially in crypto. Which is pretty awesome. So go ahead and check that out. David, gotta ask you the question before you get into the neck episode. What is the state of the nation today, sir?

This one's a weird run, Ryan. This week, the state of the nation, we are inoculating. Because you know, when when bees sting you, they sting you with poison, but then you become resistant, right? When you take the poison, you actually become more and more resistant to it. So Nick Carter is getting inoculated from the cyber hornets. But also going into the bear market, we are becoming inoculated from the drugs that is a bear from a bull market, the bull market mania, the bear the bull market euphoria. So we're going through the bear market, it's going to be tough. Nick's gonna kind of lay it out like how tough it's actually gonna be. But then once we emerge around on the other side of it, we shall be inoculated from the bear market. That's how these things work. How'd you like that one?

I I like that. Resistant to um I think some of the I guess falsehoods that are put forward. Because everything gets tested during a bear market, including our conviction and our resolve. And we end up on the other side more inoculated, stronger. And that is the story here. So, guys, we're gonna get right to our episode with Nick Carter. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. Hey, Bankless Nation. Wanted to introduce our next guest. This is Nick Carter. He's a partner of Castle Island VC, host of On the Brink Podcast, Repeat Bankless Guest, and also the recent victim of a Bitcoin Maximalist attack on Twitter. And I think Nick, we're gonna start right there. But uh, how you doing, man? You surviving out there?

I made it, you know, I s the cyber hornets, they gave me the best they had, you know, they swarmed. I beat them off. I jumped into a nearby pond. You know, I think they lost interest.

You swatted them away. And I read your um post that you wrote earlier this week about kind of like the death of Bitcoin maximalism that sets in the context for this. But like um David is the one who always calls them cyberhornets. David, wh why do you call Bitcoin maximalists cyber hornets? Can you give people context for that term?

Uh that that term just kind of it emergently was discovered, uh, but it definitely is emblematic of uh an organization of people that emergently coordinate without any like there's just this emergent coordination of the cyber hornets. Like they descend upon you, uh they there's no like central actor, there's no central leader, and they all like kind of move together. Uh and when something kicks the hornet's nest, like the cyber hornets make themselves known. Uh and so Nick accidentally, I guess, n kicked the cyber hornet's nest uh and fell victim to a cyber hornet attack. Uh Nick, you you look okay. You look pretty good. Uh can you talk about like what what did you do that pissed off the cyber hornet's nest?

I'm laughing because it's just so stupid. It's so stupid.

Yeah. I mean most of the people it's actually some of the like stalwart like old time Bitcoin hardliners also it piled on, which is disappointing 'cause like I considered some of them friends and it's like I would go and do in their podcast, so it's basically putting money in their pocket. Um

You know, going to their events, speaking at their events, like doing things for them, right? For five years, right, since I've been a full time, you know, person in this industry. And so to see them turn on me over something so just completely stupid is like really disappointing. But also it just reveals who has character and who doesn't, right? And at the same time, I've had so many people reach out to me be like, thank you for saying that. I, you know, have experienced the same kind of struggles. And um, I think this is opening a lot more doors than it closes, frankly. So just to catch everyone up, not that I assume everybody's like following like you know the tiny details of my like arguments on Twitter. Uh it started when we announced investment in Dynamic, which is a Web3 um wallet based sign on authentication startup, uh, which I actually think is a great, awesome use case. Like I think that's the one of the killer apps for web3. Um, and I was like out and about um

I don't know what I was doing, but I looked back at the tweet, which is just like a normal I think I was buying shoes actually. I was buying some pair of loafers. Um Blue Scarpa. It's a really cool Miami brand. Shout out Blue Scarpa. And I came back and there was like a hundred replies on the tweet. People were like, Wow, don't Samson Mao replied, He's like, You shouldn't be proud of this.

The tweet

of you and now the

The Castle Island invested. Yeah. People were going crazy. It's like, well, this is like I announce all the deals we do. Why didn't you have a problem with any of the other 50 deals? And so basically a whole bunch of Bitcoiners piled on. It's like mostly the class of 2021, the newer guys, you know, maybe they stacked uh a few sats here and there. And they like they probably just didn't know a lot about me. They probably didn't know anything about Castle Island. And so they'd sort of maybe read some of my stuff. They kind of assumed I was a maximalist and then I just wasn't. And uh the whole thing gave them whiplash and then they freaked out and took it as their opportunity to just you know try and sort of paint me as like a uh you know, apostate or like a Bitcoin defector or like uh you know, like a scam artist or something. Even though, like as you guys know, what we do mostly as a fund is we invest in in startup equity. So I'm not really shilling anything to anyone, I'm just announcing that we invested in a startup.

Like d dynamic doesn't even have a token, right?

It's just

No token. They they have like a traditional business model.

Uh they're doing something great, doesn't require a token, obviously uses blockchains. It's not built on Bitcoin. I know it's heretical. Um

it's like it's Web3, like kind of um you know private key um user authorization decentralized ID, similar to like the the Jack Dorsey project that was um recently announced in some ways.

completely conceptually, I would say very similar. I think they're more of DID direction. We don't really know what what they're doing, really. Um, but yeah, I like the idea is to restore user power of the internet, to get rid of these centralized authentication services. That you know, I think that's a great thing, right? We probably should definitely move away from the world where Apple and Google and whatnot uh own your identity, right? And move to a model where you sort of secure cryptographic information, use that to log into things. I mean, anybody that's ever logged into anything with MetaMask before knows that this is way, way better. And uh it it creates a more resilient internet uh and just a better experience for everyone.

Funny

that this is not even like um uh this is not even competitive in any way, shape, or form to Bitcoin.

No

It's complimentary maybe, but it's not even in the realm of like it's not a separate blockchain, it's not a separate asset that you buy. It can't be uh in competition with Bitcoin like in any way, even like just given the nature of the product and what the thing is.

Yeah, it not not remotely similar from a categorical perspective. So um it's really just um actually I would say like the laser eye sort of toximaxi people have kind of been after me for a while and I think they seized on this, they noticed I mean well people are angry first of all because just they lost money and then they sort of thought this would be a great issue to like use to try and discredit me and be like Nick's not a real Bitcoiner or something, which is fine. Like if I don't want to be part of whatever they are, right? These people are like basically lunatics, um, and I'll be what I am, which is not like them.

I think a a decent amount of uh bankless listeners and and viewers this is a world that they actually aren't very much exposed to. Can can you uh put us into the mind of a cyber hornet or a Bitcoin maxi? Like, what's their motivation for doing this? Like, why why do they participate in this sort of just like crypto cancel culture around in order to protect Bitcoin? Why do they why what are they up to?

Yeah, so well a lot of people like to a lot of them see it as their higher purpose, right? Like they believe that they're actually defenders of the protocol or something. A lot of these ideas are holdovers from maybe like the UASF wars back in 2017 where we had the big bloc wars and the small block faction won. And uh for that's at least the you know, being charitable here. That there's a segment of the cyber hornets that are these guys that have been around for a few years. Um, and they, you know, think their Bitcoin's immune system, they're protecting Bitcoin. To be clear, I'm not trying to change Bitcoin in any way. I love Bitcoin, Bitcoin's great. Um, so whatever the immune system is doing, it's misfiring, right? Um, so there's one cohort that does that. They think, oh, we can't uh consider or contemplate any changes or revisions to Bitcoin or any departure from sort of the ordained path. And that's sort of uh like a bad thing, I would say, because it leads to total intellectual stagnation, and you know, it it means that actually altering Bitcoin in any way is virtually impossible. I think it's too difficult. There's probably a balance, but I think it's too difficult. Then there's sort of like the whole like the people, the like the cyber hornet, like the toximaxis, whatever. A lot of these people are really new, they're new to the industry. They came in in 2020, 2021. Um, they're not like OGs with tons and tons of Bitcoin. A lot of these people are pretty brand new. So maybe they kind of knew I was alert a little bit, but I'm actually not shocked that they didn't know about Castle Island, they didn't know about my views, they didn't know anything about me because they're newcomers, right? Uh and they like to just like post memes and like they like to be part of this Bitcoin culture, which goes beyond just um the asset itself, right? It's about ascetism, it's about like uh deprivation, privation, right? It's about um stacking Bitcoin at the exclusion of other kind of earthly pleasures. It's certainly about uh considering Bitcoin the only moral asset to hold, to the exclusion of everything else, certainly other L1s, other blockchain tokens. And this ideology, which is quasi religious, actually, if you really look into it, uh it's got an eschat I don't know how to pronounce this, eschatology. There's an eschatological component, which is

Whatever, I don't know how to pronounce that. I've only ever read the word. Okay, give me a break. So there's a component which is like basically has to do with the like final judgment. Like looking forward into the future. It's the view that everything else in crypto is like Sodom Gomorrah and it's like sinful. And there'll come a day where the hellfire rains down, and all of the other liquidity, everything good and you know, sort of like worth saving out there in like uh the sinful Sodom and Gomorrah land is gonna sort of like collapse back to Bitcoin. Like just you wait. One day it'll all come back to Bitcoin. Like we'll build it all on liquid. And that is what allows them to tolerate the reality, the ugly reality, which they can't tolerate, which is there's a lot of innovation, like actual, real, economic, genuine, important stuff happening elsewhere. In fact, the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of all economic activity in crypto does not happen on Bitcoin, as we all know. And so they need to observe this reality. They can't help but observe it, and they need to justify it somehow. And so for them, they rely on this like judgment day ideology where uh eventually, you know, some catalyst, I don't know whether it's Gary Gensler like destroying Ethereum or uh, you know, something else means that everything will come back to Bitcoin, all the innovation we built on Bitcoin. And that's just you know, like a completely delusional thing, right? Um, but that's part of the ideology. And then of course there's the idea that you know the asset issuance has to be completely perfect, uh, completely um free of original sin, right? So like I'm using religious words, but that's because this is a secular religion, right? It is a secular religion. Um, if the issuance isn't perfect with the proof of work, uh and look, you can hold me responsible for uh expressing some of these ideas historically. I have, if the issuance wasn't absolutely perfect with you know the founder uh, you know, being Satoshi, being this like a uh unhumanly, inhumanly altruistic entity, superhuman Promethean entity.

If it wasn't perfect with the proof of work and with the miners not having advantage and like no ICO, no pre-mine, whatever, then the uh the whole coin is tainted forever thanks to the original sin. There's no absolution possibility, there's no ability to, you know, get past the sin and to be, you know, re-christened, brought back into the light. That's not possible. And so Bitcoiners also hold that Ethereum is inherently sinful because of the launch structure. Uh, and so that's the ideology. Uh, beyond that, there's like a cultural factor where people sink their whole lives into this thing. Look, I'm the last person to uh really be had to have a moral high ground there because I'm sort of all in. But you know, they do the psych Dilloners and they do like the safety and then like the book readings, and like the it it it becomes an obsession, becomes all consuming, and to becomes much more than a financial position. And so um they can't tolerate you know, they can't handle um like the selling off because that like they can't handle these models being invalidated, right? They can't handle the stock to flow model being like discredited. So because they're all in, it's so much more painful when it sells off, which it has done recently, because it's not just they lost money, but their credibility is selling off too, right? And their self worth. And so that's sort of like what it's like to be a cyber hornet. It's not a pleasant existence.

It's a sad existence. You're just buzzing around and you're going and finding victims to sting all the time. Um But but let me ask you, so you mentioned a cohort from like, you know, 2020, 2021, 2022, but there are actually some kind of like more oGs, Bitcoin hardliners, that are part of this cyber hornet attack too. Um is that the case as well that there are like Bitcoiners that have been maximalists for years and years that kind of are the de facto leaders of of these hornets? What can you say about the people that have been in crypto and in in Bitcoin for for a while, or are there some of those that you found as as part of the group attacking?

Yeah, of course. So look, I mean a lot of friends, uh people I considered friends just completely turned on me. Um that's fine, that's their prerogative. They can do whatever we want. It's actually really funny within like the the pleb space, like there are a lot of people where I've gone out of my way to like help get these people into the industry. They called me DM me, you know, I would do do a call with these people, give them advice, and then I turn around, you know, a couple years go by and then like you see them calling me like a scammer and stuff. And it's like you like should we like you remember what I what you DM'd me like years ago and

W why do they do that? Do do you think this is like just a human group kind of mentality where the the hardliners have to be in a position where they kind of attack the the more moderate factions in order to I I don't know, achieve some sort of uh social end or you know?

As as a political group radicalizes it always purges the moderates. And uh you know find unison. Yeah, correct. You can't you can't show

You always punish the um people engaging in apostasy the hardest. Like the outsiders, you just hate them because they're the outsiders. But man, the insiders that waver, oh, you know, they really suck, right? Because you you can't tolerate any defection because like that could trigger more defections. Right. Um, so the the like longtime Bitcoiners that like turned on me that I, you know, considered friends or whatever, I think that's actually just very cynical and opportunistic. They know what my fund does, they know me, right? Like, I don't just invest in Bitcoin. If you're like if you've been around for the last five years of my career, it's I haven't been quiet about it. Um, you know what I do. And uh so why did they why are they like leading the hordes here? Uh it's very simple. They think Bitcoin um is content, like a lot of them are content creators, right? They're like quote unquote educators, they think it's a zero-sum game. And if one educator is rising, another must be falling. And I do the education and stuff on the side, it's not my job. I don't really make any money from it, right? My job is my job, right? Um, they want to secure more like space, they want to secure more market share, more attention. And so, of course, the great opportunity to be like, wow, we can discredit this guy. We can like paint him as a shit coiner, and then no bitcoiners are ever gonna listen to him, whatever. Like, the unfortunate thing for them is that.

You know, distancing myself from the Toximaxis is what is the best thing I've ever done, actually. And it's making me much more credible. And um and and it's opening a lot of doors, actually. And it's my star will continue to rise here. That's the problem for them. So by attempting to like come together like their camp is getting smaller and less relevant. And you know, having defections like me from that camp is really, really gonna hurt them, right? Because like there's not that many people that are sort of like thoughtful and and like more balanced about this within the Bitcoin camp. There's very few remaining, right? Like Hasu left, Eric Wah left, um

You know, like like thoughtful uh ootie, obviously high profile defector. Like the more of these that happen myself now. There's not that many people that I consider like super like actually thoughtful, sensible, understands finance deeply, realistic, is interested in real objective reality as opposed to just delusional myths. Like I still have a few friends like that. Um, but it's more like the fingers of one hand. So the more defections there are, the more radical and niche and basically irrelevant the like hardliner crew becomes.

You know, this whole like culture of like Bitcoin maximalism reminds me of this old like um joke from like World War II. I'm gonna like butcher it, so I'm gonna like speedrun it, but it's uh like uh like there's uh so somebody dies in World War II and and for some reason they get sent to hell. And there's three like pits of just like pitch, and like the devil showing this guy around, and like, well here's the here's the American, here's where we put the the pit that we put the Americans. And like there's a bunch of Americans in this very hot like pitch, uh, and like that there's devils, like mini devils, like pushing, pitchforking the Americans back into the pitch. Uh and then he shows them to this the second pitch, uh, and then it's the British, and it's even hotter for some reason. Whoever wrote this this pit, this story, this joke says that the the the British pitch is even hotter, and there's even more devils pushing people back in. And then they turn to the Russian pitch, where all the Russian like communists are, and it's the hottest one alive. And the but there aren't any like devils on the edge of this one pushing people back in. So whenever and whenever any one Russian tries to escape the the pitch of of communist hell, the other Russians just pull them back in. Right? It's like, no, no, you can't leave. And it's just very as much reminiscent on just like Bitcoin maximalists, don't break the ranks, because if you do, we will pull you back in and you will never leave. And and like something that fascinates me about the world of crypto is like the thing that I get compelled to do the most is like this relationship between code and culture. As in the code of something works its way up and starts to define the culture that's on top of it. And like the Ethereum critique uh of like Bitcoin itself is that so much of it is in a story form, so much of it is in like meme form, where like you have to believe the story of Bitcoin to really see its purpose in the world. And as a result of that, I think that kind of incentivizes this like maximalist culture, who like not only do they believe the story, but they're enforcing the story. And they're enforcing the story by like, if you break ranks, we will shun you. You are either 100% a Bitcoin maximalist or you're not a Bitcoiner at all. Does this does this kind of like story resonate with you, Nick?

Yeah, you're spot on. Uh it's crabs in a bucket. Um the problem is that the like testable claims that these people rely on are like they're basically false or they're invalidated or they're trending towards invalidation. Now that look, I'm not gonna sit here and be like super negative on Bitcoin. I s I'm still positive on it. I think it's great. I'm not approaching it from the framework of the maximalists, right? You don't have to. Most people worldwide don't, right? Um, I'm extricating myself from that. But yeah, the the sort of like core um like more testable empirical beliefs about Bitcoin.

That they relied on are they it's just like a graveyard of falsehoods. So look at the stock to flow model. They all believed it. Now they're gonna now that it's basically like really hard to believe. I mean it's not like it you can't invalidate it or not. It's just like dots moving around on like a you know, like chart. So it's but the creator of the model never allowed it to be invalidated, so it's just whatever, it's a bad model, but so that model is like basically clearly off base now.

Virtually every single hardcore like Bitcoin maximalist, every Bitcoin educator, they believed this thing. There was virtually no one that didn't. The people that spoke out about it were like the more moderates, like me or Paul Stuartz, like uh people with sort of more economics training. Um, you know, uh you're not gonna find a lot of the like people that you think of like as like the key hardliner Bitcoiners that were speaking out against this model. They were all like, oh, well, what if it's true? And it was like a very seductive thing that pulled in a lot of people into Bitcoin. Those people are very angry now, by the way. If you want to you want an explanation for why people are so mad, it's because they really believed in this thing. Um, so that thing is false. Like the halvings is obviously related. Basically, every single hardcore like Bitcoiner believed in the having thing, which is like one of the stupidest things imaginable, man. Like you're going from 1.8% inflation issuance to 0.9%. That's a tiny supply side modulation. Um demand is what matters here, guys. Demand, not supply. The supply dynamics are known, right? It's like it's not even econ 101, it's just like rationality and like logic 101. Um, so that you know, the having is basically invalidated. Um

I would say what else? The um the theory that everything would just be built on Bitcoin, that the the side chains theory, obviously just like not happening, right? Um stable coins were on Bitcoin, then they left, NFTs were on Bitcoin, then they left, right? So any theory of utility along those lines didn't work. The theory that like Ethereum would collapse under its weight, it's just like that thing has momentum. Like it's just a denial of reality to think the thing's just gonna, you know, not exist anymore. Um so like the idea that everything interesting, all the altcoin tech is gonna be built on Bitcoin, none of that happened, right? It wouldn't make sense. Like Bitcoin does a specific thing. You don't want it to like, you know, you don't want to do all the altcoins on Bitcoin. Why would you? Um so like all these beliefs are just trending in the wrong direction.

What what's interesting here, Nick, is uh y you mentioned sort of the uh the extremists push out the the moderates, right? I c I actually consider myself a moderate Bitcoiner, right? Like I I hold Bitcoin. I'm I'm inherently bullish on Bitcoin's future, but I have um felt very much, like not recently, but um in in years past, kind of pushed out by that community of of hardliners, right? So much so that um it feels weird to call myself a bitcoiner, even though what is a bitcoiner? Someone who owns Bitcoin, someone who believes in the potential of this decentralized technology. But there was a time, Nick, where I would talk to you Bitcoiners, more hardlined people, Bitcoin maximalists. I I even remember conversations with Hasu, you know, back in like 2018 or or 2019 or so, where um the point would be made that, hey, this intolerant minority is actually good for uh an asset like Bitcoin. And other communities should actually strive to recruit this intolerant minority of hardliners. And part of the reason I'm maybe bearish on a community like Ethereum is because there are there isn't this intolerant minority of hardline Ethereum people who are very excited about the number go up of ether, the asset, and all of these other things. And particularly in like 2019, Ethereum had none of that. It didn't even have anything reminiscent of a hardline community who even thought the asset was valuable. Um so what do you say about this? Do you think this intolerant minority is kind of a an an asset to Bitcoin in some ways? Or are are you increasingly viewing it as a liability for the community?

I would say it's actually like the structure but like people kinda give too much credit to the people on Twitter during like the Fork Wars and too little credit to just like the nature of Bitcoin. Um

You know, like uh I would say Bitcoin itself just by virtue of the soft fork model is hard to change and uh that probably did a lot more to protect it than like people wearing user activated soft fork hats or you know um no2x hats or anything like that. Bitcoin just has a lot of inertia just by virtue of the way it is and the way it's set up and the fact that you just sort of opt into new upgrades. Um

So like something like the laser eyes, is that is this helpful to Bitcoin or not?

irrelevant, I would say, irrelevant. Um

The people that like fought the w the last war five years ago, you know, which was sort of like the really big battle, those people are like barely even active.

Right? They're not like still holding the line. So

that intolerant minority, like I wouldn't even say it exists today. Um, you have a different set of people for the most part, it's pretty different, which sort of like is doing a cargo cult of that, right? Instead of looking at Bitcoin's underlying principles and the values that the protocol enshrines and trying to uphold those principles, they're just sort of like doing the very surface level thing, which is yelling at people on the internet.

But like they don't have any like real appreciation for the like actual underlying values here. It's more like, oh yeah, we can uh you know get a dopamine rush by attacking people online because that's what our uh predecessors did, you know, in the in the wars of yore. Uh so they're just like cargo culting like previous battles. Um which I get it's there's like not like big wars to be fought every day, so they're bored. Uh it's like civil war reenactments, basically. It's not the real thing, you know? There's no like uh bullets in the muskets. Um so yeah, um if you want to like really defend Bitcoin, then I think you have to start from like the actual true like principles uh and and and you know work upwards from there. And I would say with the with Ethereum, like you guys do have um

You know, uh ideas and underlying uh you know components that you want to uphold and you want to prioritize. Um so I would say like that definitely exists, you know, like the idea of um making ether valuable in its own right, that was then like expressed into a bunch of design decisions and things like that. Um you know, even the striking the balance between sort of like the aggressive pace of innovation versus the required uh slowness in terms of uh making sure you're not breaking anything. Ethereum has a different cadence compared to like some of its more aggressive competitors, right? Um, you know, so like it's definitely got its own set of um like core values, I would say. Um

Now m whether it's sort of occupying the right location on the continuum, I couldn't tell you. Um I'm still like I still favor a very slow, deliberate approach. Um but uh yeah, I I don't think you know the like intolerant minority is doing much of anything uh on Bitcoin these days.

During this middle of this uh cyber hornet attack I noticed you had uh the dot eth in your name, the nickarter dot eth. Do you do you own Nick Carter dot ETH?

No, please do not send funds to that.