Introduction:
I'm a football fan (Hand-egg for my Non-American readers). Every year, a series of posts called "Why Your Team Sucks" is released that widely and hilariously criticizes each team and its fanbase. It is one of my favorite annual reads and does a great job at making fun of everybody in a mean-spirited way.
The crypto community is in desperate need of some of self-reflection. Tribalism runs too deep, and its time we remove the veil and laugh at the furious mouth breathers angrily typing on their keyboards to fight off legitimate criticisms aimed towards their favorite cryptocurrencies.
The Why Your Coin Sucks series is not intended as FUD. It's actually intended to be a bit a satire, with a sprinkle of truth, combined with a mean-spirited assessment of each project and its surrounding communities. Think of it as a "Change My View" post written by an asshole.
First up...Bitcoin
How could I possibly start this series off with any crypto other than Bitcoin and the near scientology level of devotion shown by Bitcoin Maximalists that are "iN iT FoR tHe TeCh" the same way I watch porn for the acting. Currently trading between $35,000 & $40,000 USD you might ask how I could possibly have any criticisms for the grand-daddy of all crypto projects.
Saddle-up folks, this should piss off several corners of the internet.
Reader's Digest Version of Bitcoin's History
On October 31st of 2008, the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper. Satoshi (Who I'm convinced was a 20 year old computer science student that made a bet with his buddies that he could get idiots to pay for magic internet money) mined the first block on January 3rd of 2009. At the time, Bitcoin was intended as a peer to peer (P2P) cash system where individuals could transact outside of the ever-oppressive reach of government.
From the white paper itself:
"The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers."
Why Does Bitcoin Suck?
Much in the same way Facebook stopped being cool once your boomer parents joined and started spamming thinly veiled, racist minion memes, Bitcoin has lost much of its anarchist allure. Now that the big institutional investors are involved, scooping up Bitcoin by the shovel full , it's difficult for the Bitcoin community to claim their still against the man...man.
Bitcoin's grown up.
It's like the rebellious teenager from the late 90's that smoked a ton of weed and wore puka shell necklaces while believing that was enough to constitute a full personality.
Truly, the absolute worst
They vowed to never become a corporate shill!
Fast forward twenty some odd years, and now they're just a middle-aged, clean-shaven, flabby, medical mal-practice attorney, day-dreaming about days long past where they would get high and listen to Tool for four hours while eating a box of Lucky Charms (and still likely devoid of any real personality).
To put it bluntly, you aren't cool anymore. You've gone mainstream. You've sold out.
The next annoying thing about the Bitcoin actually relates to football (Hand-egg) quite well...
I'm not sure how many times you can move a goal post before you're off the field of play, but boy howdy has the narrative on Bitcoin's use case changed. Sometime during the bullrun of 2017, we learned that Bitcoin doesn't scale very well when demand is high, leading to delayed confirmations and high transaction fees, which essentially killed the idea of Bitcoin as a P2P cash system. Before the crusaders come after me screaming LIGHTNING NETWORK, I'm aware it exists. Average Transaction fees still peaked out at almost $15 this past week, so unless you are cool with that 11$ bargain bin dildo costing you $26, Bitcoin is not going to work as a daily currency...which is fine, because we have been able to successfully move the goal post 90 yards in the other direction, to call Bitcoin a "Store of Value" or a "Hedge against inflation".
Call it whatever you want, but it's another fancy way of saying governments and big business will have as much control over Bitcoin as the cell phone you are probably reading this on (A LOT of fucking control).
Next, we can dive into the extreme energy cost to mine Bitcoin and how hobbyists have essentially been boxed out of the Bitcoin mining game by monstrosities like this:
Bet it still can't run Crysis
I admit the whole "China owns Bitcoin" narrative is overblown by annoying XRP shills and the head of Ripple itself, but Chinese run mining groups do control the majority of Bitcoin's network hash rate. That is an undeniable fact. The odds of all the mining groups forming together to form a 51% attack is low and impractical, but that does not mean it is impossible. It is important to recognize risk, even when the probability is low.
Finally, let's not forget that Satoshi (whoever the fuck that may be) might own 1 million bitcoins. The guy might be dead, or he might be a true idealist, but a million bitcoin is a lot of cheddar. That cheddar could easily be dumped on the market should Satoshi be alive and well and decide "Fuck this whole Bitcoin thing"
Both the China thing and the Satoshi dump are improbable but...
If I told you eight years ago the US capitol would be stormed by this guy:
To try and keep this guy as President:
You'd probably have me committed for spouting insanity.
My point: Weird shit happens, and things are only improbable until they actually happen.
Why does the Bitcoin Community Suck?
Bitcoin Maxis...the original crypto shillers.
The difference between a Bitcoin Maxi and any other crypto shiller is the infuriating, smug arrogance they have because they were fucking right. All those years of holding and accumulating, finally paying off in 2017. Bitcoin dweebs were all of sudden richer than lawyers, doctors, stock brokers, and other folks following career paths that required actual work....and boy could they not shut the fuck up about it.
And then they weren't.
The crash came hard leaving most still holding bags refusing to sell, while those that did cash out at the top, likely laughed all the way to the bank. This whole pattern will likely repeat again. Key difference is instead a few hundred randos running off with millions, a few massive institutions will run off with billions.
Add that to the fact that Bitcoin continues to be endlessly forked because people can't seem to agree on how to do things, and you have a large community splintered into multiple annoying factions. Those that are "In it for the tech", those that just want to make money, and those that want to fight with every rando on the internet.
Finally, and I will leave you with this: I refuse to give the Bitcoin community (and all of crypto for that matter) as pass for this:
Why?
So, Bitcoin. That's why your coin sucks. Hate what I had to say? Oh well.
Leave a comment or something.
It's the internet.
There's not much you can do about it.
Want more shitposting, memes, and sometimes friendly conversation?
Come visit our main hub on reddit at r/altstreetbets , send us a Tweet, or join us on Discord.
We'd love to see you join our growing community!
