The Infighting Between Crypto Communities Needs To Stop
There has been something bothering me for a while, but I have been moistly ignoring it because it is extremely hard to stop malicious behavior on the internet, but it has gotten so bad that I decided to finally talk about it. Plain and simple, the amount of infighting between crypto communities is getting worse and only makes the crypto revolution look bad. Disagreeing with someone is one thing, but going out of your way to insult someone, laugh at someone when something unfortunate happens or go as far as to send anonymous death threats is inexcusable. I strongly believe that there will never be just one currency and that each currency can have a niche market, even if one was to have the majority of the market cap. No matter which blockchain or currency succeeds, we will be better off as a society so why are we trying so hard to sabotage each other. We mostly are fighting for and want the same future (with small variants) and all this infighting does is make us look weak as a community.
The biggest fight going on right now is between bitcoin and Ethereum, mostly because each of them has a market cap over a billion dollars. Bitcoin maximalists attack Ethereum at every corner calling it a scam and laughing at investors when they undergo network attacks and experiments like the DAO fail. Ethereum supporters do the same when exchanges are hacked and people lose their money. The thing is, Ethereum and Bitcoin are complementary far more than they are competitive. The fact is, it doesn’t matter if money from the outside comes into bitcoin or ether, both help enrich the crypto space by making it more diverse and adding value through adding new possible use cases. The fact is, each of the currencies has strengths and weaknesses that can’t be changed, so shoving them into each other’s faces is doing nothing but creating a crypto civil war. Most people are thinking only about their money when they go into complete troll mode, which is stupid because the success of bitcoin would bring large amounts of money into Ethereum and vice versa.
The real fight that needs to be going on is the fight against private blockchains, because they are the real threat. Many people like Andreas don’t see them as a threat, but companies are going to settle for the chain that just gets the job done whether it is public or not. Until something like a massive hack or a large exploit happens, they are going to continue pumping the private blockchain and disregard public blockchains. Instead of attacking each other over small issues on public blockchains, we should move our effort towards going after private chains and informing people the benefits that public chains have, over them.
We as a community need to police the bad actors in our own spaces and stop upvoting them on social media sites like reddit. Giving them the satisfaction from trolling only adds to their bad behavior. We need healthy disagreements and talks that raises legitimate questions, but we need to silence those who act maliciously. If you see comments or posts that add nothing to the conversation and are obvious trolling, we need to downvote them as a community. Especially on a system like steemit, which is completely community driven, we shouldn’t allow this behavior. I’m far less worried about steemit as I am about reddit however, where most of the trolling takes place. Circle jerk anti-altcoin posts get upvoted to the moon, while people who talk about actual benefits they coins can offer to the community are labeled as shills.
I am pro bitcoin, pro Ethereum , pro Steem and pro altcoin, because each offers valuable insight into the future possibilities of what we can do and institute in the space. Small cap altcoins are a great place to be innovative and try new things, while the stability and large market cap of bitcoin offers value in other places. Each coin benefits the community in some way, even if they end up failing. Most of the failed companies during the era of the internet still added large amounts of value to the space that was borrowed by later companies. The great thing about open source is we can create and borrow features from each other to make the crypto space better and more resilient, so let’s put down our arms and stop this arbitrary fighting.
-Calaber24p
I think this is mainly caused by hard-core bitcoiners. They resent alts because they believe money going to alts should be going to bitcoin and that bitcoin hasn't made it big because of the presence of alts.
Of course it's a ridiculous attitude. Many people came into the crypto space directly because of alts - for example doge pulled in a lot of people, and a lot of writers are being pulled in by steem.
Finally, the bitcoiner attitude that there should be just one coin is incredibly authoritarian. They claim they are fighting against the hegemony of fiat, but in reality they want to create their own hegemony, and one that is controlled by a small amount of core devs too.
You are mistaken: the core devs don't control anything. Bitcoin users can run whatever variant of the software they choose. It's a voluntary trust decision.
I think its unfair to group all bitcoiners under one umbrella, but definitely bitcoin maximalists are starting many of the problems . I think the majority of people are doing the right thing, just unfortunately the loudest ones are the ones that everyone hears.
Remember there are paid trolls online. And then again there is the issue of people wanting to profit from their investments, some think a good way to profit is by taking out the other players. I guess the biggest risk is not really that people will get turned off by seeing arguments, we are kinda used to this, it's kinda the way things go online nowdays. I would guess the biggest issue is that people who are actually into crypto would waste their time exchanging curses with those who are just looking to disrupt. Choose your fights very well. You could be using the time used in arguing to create how-to articles, ect, to encourage adoption to whatever you think needs to be adopted.
Interesting post.
For a long time I thought it was mostly paid trolls, but many high reputation people in the crypto space are taking part in bashing eachother. I agree completely, people are wasting what could be a productive use of time for trolling and adding zero benefit to the community.
Steemit is actually my very first venture into cryptocurrency so for me it's like walking in on mom and dad arguing while I'm perfectly content about not having a clue what the argument is about...because I love them all. :)
Glad to see steemit bring someone into the crypto space that might not have gotten in otherwise, welcome!
I really buy Andreas' analogy that private blockchains are like corporate intranets. They really have nothing on the Internet, they're limited, fragile, and more-or-less useless. It doesn't hurt to explain the benefits of public blockchains, but people are going to come around sooner or later, because of those benefits. The fruits of liberty are just too great.
Anyway, I agree with your thesis about quitting the infighting. It's like people say, "You're down on whatever you're not up on." When money is involved, people try to tear other projects down. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to prevent that, as people are always going to get emotional about money.
you would think that crypto-enthusiasts would be smarter than fighting over brand names.
Hopefully it is just a small and very vocal part of the community indulging in these shouting matches.
I understand that we each want our own investment to be "the successful one".
Thanks for noting that each altcoin may have it's own distinct advantages.
Im sure it is just a small vocal part of the community, but they seem to have recruited some people as well along the way because there are many more vocal people than there used to be. IMO
Yes so true - better unite than fight. It looks like the next clash will be with ripple....and rest of altcoin...
Theres been clashes with ripple for as long as I can remember. We could see a resurgence of that but they seem to be focusing most of their time fighting ethereum.
Very interesting what you say.At that time I did not notice it. I only took note then when the first clashes started within bitcoin between the purist and the tweakers.
Could not agree more. I love many coins and am actually looking for a t shirt with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Steem logos (on one shirt) to wear at my upcoming talk on Blockchains at PubCon in Las Vegas. If you know of one please let me know!
Thats a cool idea, there are alot of sites that let you custom make shirts. I did it once, forgot who I used though.
I'll upvote this, I've seen crypto communities go to great lengths to try and harm the others, and one of my investments was killed when a few alts joined up to take down the one I had invested in. The great thing about Steem is I can "invest" by adding value to the network :)
Yeah people are willing to do anything to "protect" their investments and dont realize that by killing coins that can be used essentially as experiments, just hurts us all.
Infighting only makes everyone tired and we need that energy to overcome the hurdles that keep us from reaching our goals,
agreed, I havent posted or viewed the bitcoin/ethereum subreddits in a while because of how bit the cirlce jerks on both sides are.
Great post! Can Steem ever be mentioned alongside those 2 heavyweights you think? If so, what will it need to do to get there?
I only mention it because I do see some comments occasionally, but like I said it isnt much of a problem here.
No protected speech "needs to stop". You're allowed to have a different opinion. You're a total jerk to say that other people can't express theirs.
(An even bigger jerk than trash-talking bitcoiners, who afaik aren't saying "ethereum users need to stop".)
Im not saying people shouldnt be free to say whatever they want, but if it is malicious I believe we as a community need to downvote and repress opinions that add zero value to anyone. There is no value added when people run in and say "Fuck bitcoin, ethereum is #1" and vice versa. Having an opposite opinion that portrayed in a civil way should in no way be downvoted or suppressed.
agree with this
solid post
Bravo!
I totally agree and find it hard to believe there are so many people who do not agree and or act differently...Seems like true insanity to me.
I don't have any arguments or disagreements with anything you said here and feel that if people were acting as you say then we would all be much more successful!
Obviously everyone who already agrees with this will support it and not be a problem...The questions is will this influence anyone who is not already on the same page?
I sure hope so!
Thanks for sharing this and everything else you do. Steemit is a far better place for it!
Best Regards~*~
Great post. It's just so easy to let (short term) greed get in the way of the original vision. Just step back from time to time and take a look at the bigger picture.