Bitcoin can be described as a circle or group of people who generally organize around a shared system. Users join together and follow a set of rules that are computerized by code. The said rules in the Bitcoin protocol are generally agreed upon and can be verified by anyone:
- No confiscations
- No censorship
- No inflation
The Bitcoin Culture Wars
The disagreements between Bitcoiners are called ‘culture wars’ as they rarely agree on every single point of the shared system; when their visions collide, this particular war breaks out.
Commonly, conflicts arise on social media platforms such as Twitter, forums, and mailing lists. People share their point of views which is later scrutinized and judged by the community.
When the public doesn’t reach an agreement, the minority of them are free to experiment with their ideas in the market by inventing a ‘fork’. That is to say, the users can create their tokens by copying and pasting the Bitcoin code.
In a manner, when people invent forks; they avoid unrestrained dispute and give the market a chance to settle the value of the new token if it’ll be accepted or not.
In other words, the general bunch of people side with either side they deem fit and the victor is selected by the market price.
Bitcoin’s culture war makes it difficult to get social agreements on issues which in turn leads to conservatism. Hypothetically, this has the potential to make Bitcoin a bit too slow to get used to technological advancements leading to a challenging dominance for coin gaining in the market.
This particular weakness of culture wars has led to governance models being proposed such as on-chain voting and protocols that are ‘fire-resistant. However, the triumph of money is in the long run fixed on by network effects, and Bitcoin is said to be winning the race.
Not to mention, the type of rigorous debates that occur around culture wars are said to be extremely beneficial for Bitcoin:
Benefits of Bitcoin’s Culture Wars
You might generally know the Bitcoin community for implementing new ideas. Furthermore, it has gained a reputation for being straightforward with a rigor not usually found in cryptocurrency communities. Unfortunately, this sometimes comes across as toxic to the audience.
Nevertheless, if the communities don’t undergo candid discussions, they risk becoming vulnerable and feeble.
That’s why during bitcoin transfer, users can dabble in trading cryptocurrencies safely and focus on getting the fundamentals down without worrying about the difficult part of trading as it does the market research for you.
And since we’re talking about Bitcoin and how it allows new ideas, this ongoing dispute between Bitcoiners exposes the bad ideas before these are applied to the protocol. Furthermore, it permits them to experiment with the proposals privately as the changes done to the protocol must be addressed cautiously. This, in exchange, decreases Bitcoin’s attack surface.
Cultural war or Cultural skirmishes help refine the core message and get rid of unwanted suggestions:
Supposing that an individual who proposed an already tested idea has led to a failed fork. Then the group can point to the lessons and act accordingly and it also allows them to focus on more pressing matters.
Discussions that are done privately are a great way to show Bitcoin to the outside world. Anyhow, the Bitcoin community isn’t solely involved in this. The idea that wins and gets socially accepted reaches potential new cryptocurrency converts.
Agreeing on the messaging lowers user acquisition costs:
People usually take quite some time to want to acquire Bitcoins as they need to hear about it infrequently. They might also take a long while to decide if the messaging is inconsistent and opposed. Of course, if a first-time investor hears things such as fast cheap payments, digital gold, or anonymous digital currency to buy drugs online, they are bound to get confused. Hence, understanding Bitcoin gets a lot more complicated for them.
By improving the core messaging, the required number of touchpoints that you require as a potential user before taking a decision would supposedly reduce and beneficially make the network more profitable.
That being said, Culture Wars matter because although they may come into sight as toxic, they are net positive and inexorable. Every time Bitcoin overcomes a cultural skirmish/war, it gets more than prepared for future challenges with progressively more at stake. You can buy bitcoin with credit card on the Paybis website.
