
Bitcoin is a Cult - ccnafr
https://adamcaudill.com/2018/06/21/bitcoin-is-a-cult/
======
Permit
I think people have largely missed the point of the article. This is
specifically in relation to a "magic hash" on a block that was mined on June
19, 2018 with the hash:
00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a

The leading zeros are the "proof-of-work". The bitcoin mining algorithm tries
various nonces and generates many hashes until it finds one with (currently)
18 leading zeros. Surprisingly, much of the Bitcoin community doesn't know
this and think that the leading zeros are special.

The 21e800 is supposedly 'special' because it relates to the E8 'Exceptionally
Simple Theory of Everything'. A physics theory proposing a basis for unified
field theory.

Anyways, people have mistakenly calculated the odds of such an occurrence and
believe it to be exceedingly rare. They are claiming that someone must have
left it there and that it is either the result of:

1\. A quantum computer

2\. Time travelling

3\. Something related to the Bible

This doesn't really make sense and we can calculate the odds ourselves. It
works out to roughly 3%. (1 - ((16^6 - 1) / (16^6)) ^ 500,000 blocks) = 0.03.

There are 18 hashes with the leading non-zero digits 21e8

There are 3 hashes with the leading non-zero digits 21e80

There are many other "vanity hashes":

(57ea1 or steal)
[https://blockchain.info/block/000000000057ea16558140e0b3995a...](https://blockchain.info/block/000000000057ea16558140e0b3995aef6dd2641624e1c790acf78424ce4e4b83)

(1055e5 or losses)
[https://blockchain.info/block/00000000001055e54d1d11bae837d5...](https://blockchain.info/block/00000000001055e54d1d11bae837d58b1b5887947c0af9147b7418675d5198b5)

These things are not rare, but as mentioned in the article, people have
ascribed a sort of religious aspect to them. It's really weird.

I also wrote about this today. If you're interested in some of the other weird
responses see: [https://medium.com/@thisisjoshvarty/lets-talk-about-
hashes-o...](https://medium.com/@thisisjoshvarty/lets-talk-about-hashes-
or-00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a-b8d8c8fb4e94)

~~~
B-Con
In this type of scenario (be it bitcoin hashes, serial numbers elsewhere,
etc), the real question is how many possible "vanity" hashes exist. The odds
of this specific one are not interesting, it's the space of all of them that
is.

It's pretty much always infeasible to enumerate that space, but generally
speaking there are a looooot of things that could qualify as special-looking
enough to be included. All forms of english, foreign languages, language
abbreviations, leet-speak, slang, pop-culture-inspired references, etc.

The odds of randomly tripping across something "special" eventually are pretty
good. And bonus points if eventually one of those special coincidences is
vaguely time-correlated with a real-world version of itself (eg, the number
happens to be in the news, the slang word was recently used by a celebrity,
etc).

~~~
DFHippie
My kids used to celebrate "holimoments" (after the pattern of "holiday").
These were occasions when they'd look at the digital clock on the microwave
and see something that didn't quite look random, like "10:01" or "12:34". They
had a little ceremony when they saw one of these, pretending to take pictures
with an invisible camera and doing a dance which involved wiggling their butts
(because butts are always funny). There are a lot of events which deserve a
holimoment dance and nothing more.

~~~
matthewwiese
Hah! That is incredibly endearing. I've also had friends remark (more joking
than serious) that if you happen to glance at a clock that reads 11:11 to make
a wish because it's lucky.

I have obsessive compulsive disorder, so unfortunately these cosmic
peccadillos really throw my brain for a loop!

~~~
smudgymcscmudge
Read this comment, then checked my clock. It was 11:11. This will be a lucky
day.

~~~
Keyframe
You digital people, you. On analog watch, if two hands (hours and minutes)
overlap when you take a look, that means someone is thinking of you!

------
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
There is, without a doubt, a Bitcoin cult. Or more generally, crypto-currency
cults.

The headline reads like it's _only_ a cult, which isn't the case. Even the
most critical observer must concede that these distributed networks are novel
and interesting.

The farther you move from social media, the less cult-like things get. The
best discussion remains on listservs, and there is a lot of interesting and
substantive discussion occurring.

~~~
jenga22
A lot of things are cults and it doesn't have to do much with social media or
the behaviors he is outlining.

Apple - You can argue Apple, the hardware company, is a cult. The fans are
rabid in their support for the company. Often the discussions are not at all
civil and in this particular case there is no financial incentive.

Let's move even farther away.

There are cults for clothing companies. Companies that make drinks. Gaming
companies. Youtube streamers. Heck, there even cults in processor companies.

Take for example AMD. I have had chats with people who just get livid when
Intel vs. AMD conversations come up and I am thinking to myself "We are
talking about CPUs right?".

There are even cults with Operating Systems. Just ask the nix vs. Windows
folks. Those discussions get heated.

So I am not sure what he is trying to argue here. There will always be folks
developing who will have a civil discourse and try to make the currency better
and then there will be the peanut gallery. That comes with anything that gains
wider exposure.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
I think maybe you are confusing or just being hyperbolic on the difference
between fan club and religious devotion.

~~~
sgt101
There are many differences (of course!) but one common strand is that both are
elements of the adherent's identity. In the case of Crypto there is another
defining commonality - which is life style and life chances. Religions provide
a vehicle (the community) which provides adherents with different chances from
those outside, Crypto does the same - via money... if you have invested you
might be rich, or poor, but your life is changed.

~~~
jenga22
Right. I agree. I am also going one step further and arguing that crypto is
more of a fan club then a cult. There are cults way stronger that illicit a
far greater emotion reaction that crypto.

Even now, when the price is in the toilet, a lot of really smart people are
having sane discussions across sub-reddits. And those very smart people are
still checkin in code and making improvements.

This has happened before. During the BBS era and ARPA Net era, a lot of people
said those things were "cute" and only used by underground cult figures. They
said that people who believed in the "internet" were dillusional that a global
network would ever happen. They also said that it would have limited impact on
society. They said it would stay largely with universities. Newspapers
laughed. Television networks laughed. Music companies shrugged it off. But the
one thing I learned from both those eras is if there are a lot of smart people
working in it then it is not to be discounted.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _BBS era and ARPA Net era_

These services were launched to solve a practical problem. Bitcoin was
launched as the manifestation of an ideology.

~~~
jenga22
You sure about that? Arpanet was created to exchange short messages in case of
a nuclear attack on the United States rendered all above ground communication
and survivability useless. I hardly consider that a practical use case. [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_during_the_Cold_W...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_during_the_Cold_War)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
The U.S. government considered it a practical problem. That’s why they paid
for it.

If it helps, replace “practical problem” with “a problem customers will pay
you to solve.” ARPANET had that. Bitcoin, on the other, never had an original
sale. It was mined as a curiosity and then jumped from narrative (“currency of
the future!”) to narrative (“store of value!”) to narrative (“mostly goes
up!”)

~~~
jenga22
What the U.S. considers a practical problem often isn't. That is a shitty
statement. The U.S. also considered spending 2T on a jet that was worse than
the F-22. Just because the U.S. spends on something doesn't mean it has a
practical application.

Nevertheless, the internet turned out to be transforming from its original
purpose. We can sit here and argue about cyrptocurreny but the game is young
and we wont know what it will turn into in 30 years. Just like the people in
the 70 and 80s didn't know how transforming the internet would become for our
society.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _What the U.S. considers a practical problem often isn 't_

Sure. But it’s still a customer making a purchase. That purchase grounds the
project in someone’s need. A need they’re willing to trade for. The “trades
for” part is important, since it references the _status quo_.

Financial assets, particularly speculative assets, don’t solve a need. They
promise to solve a future need. (Sometimes they don’t.) Part of the discipline
of speculating investing is knowing when to pull the plug.

------
apo
_The Bitcoin community has changed greatly over the years; from technophiles
that could explain a Merkle tree in their sleep, to speculators driven by the
desire for a quick profit & blockchain startups seeking billion dollar
valuations led by people who don’t even know what a Merkle tree is._

I'm not sure which version of history this guy was on, but it clearly hasn't
been the one I followed. He's describing a past that never was.

Read the old Bitcoin Talk posts. It took years for Bitcoin's technical ideas
to become well-understood by even a fraction of the user base.

Pick any year after 2010 and you'll find that the vast majority of Bitcoin
users were in it to: (1) stick it to the man; (2) make a buck; or both.

Interest in the technology itself motivates only a tiny fraction of users.

~~~
btown
Technically, when the community was just Satoshi, what he said held true :)

~~~
zymhan
Is this really even worth saying? Saying you're being pedantic doesn't cover
it.

------
yipbub
I've thinking of how many of the communities and belief systems on the
internet are very similar to religions.

I've started calling conspiracy theories the "religions of the internet" to
make a point to my dad whose understandable distrust of the mainstream
narrative has lead him to give more trust to the anti-establishment churches
like [https://themindunleashed.com](https://themindunleashed.com) that publish
conspiracy theories, badly informed opinions on real science news, and pseudo-
science mixed in with some real science news.

His reaction to mistrusting the mainstream was to shift his trust somewhere
easily identifiable as untrustworthy (to someone educated in the sciences)
atleast partly because it acknowledges his mistrust of the mainstream and
presents the only-mostly-wrong ideas in a fleshed out manner and authoritative
tone.

Some observations and layman speculation:

I've just started reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harrari which suggests that
there is a strong biological tendency toward adopting unsubstantiated beliefs
to enable human cooperation at scale he called them collective myths.

I've also once met a sincere flat earther, but I suspect his ideas arose from
doing too much LSD before encountering the idea of tracing his beliefs to
their root axioms.

------
maym86
I don't disagree but isn't this true for the popularization of any technology.
First it's just the nerds then come the less informed masses who don't fully
understand the details along with the people trying to make money out of that
fact.

~~~
eksemplar
I think crypto is different in the way it actually doesn’t do anything.
Bitcoin has been around for 9 years and you have never been able to use
bitcoin as a currency fewer places than you can now.

~~~
tluyben2
Any data to back that up ? I know anecdotal, but I can buy beers, taxi &
coffee with crypto which I could not 9 years ago and I see quite a lot of ATMs
appearing; NL/UK/JP/HK. I think the main point is that I can get a coffee with
crypto, which is an important milestone.

~~~
eksemplar
Maybe it’s because I’m European, but 8 years ago I could buy coffee with
crypto in both Copenhagen and Berlin and today I can’t.

~~~
tluyben2
Did they ban it in Copenhagen and Berlin? In general? Or just not enough
demand so they threw it out?

~~~
eksemplar
It’s not illegal, it’s just really inconvenient.

Today we’ve linked instant payment methods to our credit cards, if the card
isn’t rfid enabled on its own. So you just swipe your payment method and
you’re done.

We even have a banking app that lets you instantly transfer funds between you,
between banks as well, for free. Called mobile pay. So smaller stores that
can’t afford to have a credit card system, use that.

So that’s on the payment side. It’s also extremely tedious, and expensive, to
turn the bitcoin into actual cash + taxation makes selling a coffee with
crypto a bad business case.

Honestly though, I think it’s mostly down to a complete lack of demand.

~~~
sparkie
I'm guessing it's more to do with transaction times than anything. A merchant
needs to wait 10, 20 or 30 minutes to get a confirmation in Bitcoin, because
he can't be sure there will not be a double-spend of the money until it is
confirmed.

Technically, this has always been the case, but there was a false belief that
0conf transactions were secure, because Bitcoin clients rejected double-spend
attempts by default (as a DoS protection). This prevention of double-spending
unconfirmed transactions was never part of the protocol though, and it was
made clear when Replace-by-fee was added, which shows how clients can easily
replace existing transactions with new ones, without changing the Bitcoin
protocol.

There's still a crowd who believe that 0conf transactions are fine, and RBF
should be removed (eg, the Bitcoin Cash developers), but it's really just
ignoring the reality that RBF is not an enforcible protocol rule, but a
client-side policy in the software. It's probably fine to use 0conf for small
transactions because it is manageable risk, similar to accepting credit cards
where payments can be reversed.

Another possible solution to faster payments is with payment channels, where
the risk of double-spending is mitigated by hashed time-locked contracts which
are transmitted between parties and not broadcast over the Bitcoin network
until one of the parties wants to reclaim their funds onto the Bitcoin
network. Since the parties are just exchanging HTLCs over a TCP connection,
they're practically instant, the fees are low or nil, and there is a potential
privacy improvement by not revealing every transaction into the Bitcoin
ledger. This is in development (minimally working on Lightning Network now),
but proceeding quite slowly.

If Bitcoin is going to have widespread global usage, these problems need to be
overcome so that it is as simple, or simpler to use than credit cards for the
average user. It possibly is simpler to set up for merchants already, if
they're technical enough, because they don't have to involve 3rd party payment
processors.

The other side to it is that we take credit cards for granted in the developed
world, and often miss that there are a billion or more people without banks in
the developing world. These are the people who have the real use-case for
Bitcoin. A single user can set up a Bitcoin node on a smartphone in some
remote village, and suddenly bring banking capability to their entire village.
I think that's a very strong use case. People are also using it to hedge
against their national currencies which are being hyper-inflated by their own
governments - as is happening in Venezuela right now.

~~~
notahacker
Setting up a Bitcoin node in a remote village doesn't "bring banking
capability to the entire village". The node doesn't offer a badly-needed
credit facility or the ability to turn remittances into local banknotes (at
least not without an actual bank account...), the stuff that can be bought
with Bitcoins can't be shipped to the village anyway, a foreign language
software program that doesn't run on dumbphones certainly isn't an improvement
on their existing cash, mobile and IOU payment systems and is an unimaginably
awful way for a technically and financially unsophisticated population to
store their life savings. It does offer hope to wealthy Westerners who bought
Bitcoin in December that they might recover their losses by dumping on the
global poor, I guess.

------
dustinmoorenet
I saw a t-shirt the other day that said "friends don't let friends sell
bitcoins". At first I thought it was anti-bitcoin, but then I realized that
they were advocating "hodl". Yeah feels like a cult to me.

------
sidkhanooja
r/bitcoin comes to mind whenever I think of the words "Bitcoin" and "cult" in
the same sentence.

~~~
shiado
If you want to read an interesting story read this.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/info...](https://old.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/informative_btc_vs_bch_articles/dl8v4lp/)

~~~
askmike
Pretty biased story, sounds like it was Blockstream against everyone else (it
wasn't). Most people on the mailinglist thought it was dangerous to increase
the blocksize, not just people who worked for Blockstream.

> Some of the employees of Blockstream also put forth some proposals, but all
> were so conservative, it would take bitcoin many decades before it could
> reach a scale of VISA.

I hate to bring it to you, but no big decentralized network where everything
happens on a single chain will ever reach VISA scale. I'm not sure why people
think Bitcoin can do this. I do not work for blockstream and I think just
scaling this up is a terrible idea. I only know a handful of technical people
who disagree.

> After this free and open source software was released, Theymos, the person
> who controls all the main communication channels for the bitcoin community
> implemented a new moderation policy that disallowed any discussion of this
> new software. Specifically, if people were to discuss this software, their
> comments would be deleted and ultimately they would be banned temporarily or
> permanently. This caused chaos within the community as there was very clear
> support for this software at the time and it seemed our best hope for
> finally solving the problem and moving on.

IMO the chaos did not come from content moderation but from different groups
of people who all claimed their software (bitcoin XT, bitcoin core) was the
real bitcoin. And not many people understood what was going on. There was
definitely some support for bitcoin XT, but it was always minuscule compared
to bitcoin's IMO. This has nothing to do with either Theymos nor Blockstream.

~~~
shiado
I definitely agree about Bitcoin and scaling, as anybody who can do napkin
math would realize that increases in block size to scale to a level of
transactions/second competitive with a credit card network would cause the
blockchain to grow at a catastrophically unsustainable rate. Bitcoin Cash imho
offers absolutely nothing of value because it runs up against the exact same
technical problems. Think of it like slightly reducing a constant factor to an
O(n^3) algorithm, you haven't made things more efficient in the required way.

I think the main takeaway about /r/bitcoin is that bitcoin claims to be this
decentralized democratic technical project where anybody can contribute but in
reality many of the places where discussion takes place are completely
censored and controlled by entities who aren't transparent about their
intentions like Blockstream and Theymos. This also applies to /r/btc for
Bitcoin Cash shills.

~~~
askmike
> bitcoin claims to be this decentralized democratic technical project where
> anybody can contribute

Where is this claimed? The technical project is just another open source
project, not very decentralized. The idea of bitcoin is that you (the user)
can decide what software you want to run, if you don't agree with rules
imposed by a certain software project you not run it or run an older version.
This (as well as how the network works) is decentralized. Ofcourse Reddit and
other social media channels are not decentralized, and neither is development
of the different node implementations.

I don't think there exists a way to collaborate on any technical open source
project in a truly decentralized way. I love to be proven wrong, do you know
any project that is? So no BDFL (Linus, Guido), no foundation and actual
decentralized contribution?

------
X6S1x6Okd1st
The way that people are reacting to
00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a is really
sad. The bit about people thinking that there is a sha256 preimage attack on a
quantum computer is just icing on the ignorance cake.

------
Synaesthesia
When I first got into bitcoin I thought it could be a wonderful alternative to
the current monetary system, I especially hoped it would be more equitably
shares. Unfortunately it’s turned out to be as unequally shared as our current
wealth is, if not more.

Perhaps some kind of coin where everybody in the world is issued the same
amount or something.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
> _Perhaps some kind of coin where everybody in the world is issued the same
> amount or something._

That’s an interesting idea for how a currency would work and I’m half tempted
to ask you to explain if everyone had the same where is the value in it... but
more tempted to suggest you develope a currency based on human fingers as most
of us start with the same number.

~~~
ianai
One idea I’ve had and heard similar descriptions of elsewhere is to give
people grants for various things. Ie. If you’re diagnosed with skin cancer
you’re given a grant to fund the treatment. There’d have to be an algorithm in
place to settle on the optimum grant - and I don’t claim to know it. Maybe
it’s a grant that establishes a reimbursement contract between the service
provider, the government, and the patient with an allotment for a maximal
amount of profit. But giving people blocks of money is compatible with the
capitalistic market. They would still have to choose how to spend their
stipend(s) and the associated trade offs. I liken it to filling in missing
data with the average value. Making sure everyone made at least the average
per capita income wouldn’t change inflation, I think.

------
shobith
Any network-effect driven product is a cult.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Any network-effect driven product is a cult_

"The term cult usually refers to a social group defined by its religious,
spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or its common interest in a particular
personality, object or goal" [1]. Membership connotes devotion. That is
different from network effects. For example, telephones benefit from network
effects. Buying a telephone does not join one onto a cult.

(Buying Bitcoin, alone, does not admit one into a cult, either. It’s the
behaviour of the community around Bitcoin that exhibits cult-like tendencies.)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult)

~~~
shobith
> Buying Bitcoin, alone, does not admit one into a cult, either. It’s the
> behaviour of the community around Bitcoin that exhibits cult-like
> tendencies.

In that case, is Bitcoin really a cult? or is there a cult that is using
Bitcoin?

------
jaequery
can someone name one successful startup that actually utilizes the blockchain
to do something they couldnt have done without?

~~~
Taek
well, you may not call Sia successful (a cloud storage network with 200 TB of
data being actively stored on it), but it uses blockchain to achieve something
that it could not achieve without.

~~~
quonn
That‘s very little data. And besides it could, of course, be done completely
without blockchain even if the data is stored decentralised.

~~~
Taek
Sia works without any centralized orchestration, enabling you to safely use
financially incentivized hosts without needing to know who they are, and
allowing you to know that that only get paid if they store your data as
promised. The hosts also can be guaranteed that they get paid even if the
renter disappears, and you can't achieve those things without a blockchain.

------
bogomipz
I was curious about the following statement and am hoping someone could
explain why:

>"hashing is one thing that’s considered safe from quantum computers."

Why is it safe? Is this because the number of cubits that will be available in
the near future would be too small for something like SAH256? Something else
entirely?

------
znpy
It really reminds me of this article: "Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in
subculture evolution" ( [https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-
sociopaths](https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths) )

------
snek
this elegantly summed up all my feelings on bitcoin; excellent read

------
m-i-l
_" Evolution is brutal, it requires death"_

The problem here is simple: people have too much money at stake now. The
solution is not so simple, given this is a technology about money.

But I do feel that it may be possible to learn from all of this, and preserve
what is useful and use technology to eliminate the negative influence. For
example, preserve the incentive mechanism for decentralising certain services
(which could have genuine benefits for some use cases) while ensuring there
isn't a publicly tradeable token or that if there is that it is protected by a
stablecoin mechanism to prevent speculation. (Just one example.)

------
geraldbauer
Thanks for speaking out. I've collected some anti bitcoin-propaganda - titled
best of bitcoin maximalist [1] and crypto facts - true or false? [2] in free
online booklets among others.

[1] [https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-
maximalist](https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-maximalist) [2]
[https://bitsblocks.github.io/crypto-
facts](https://bitsblocks.github.io/crypto-facts)

------
lkrubner
People in the West don't seem to realize how much Bitcoin is supported by
Chinese businesses, and citizens, that are trying to evade their government's
capital controls. Many people have an urgent desire to get money out of China,
to invest it or spend it elsewhere. Bitcoin gives them a way to evade
government regulations. This is why Bitcoin mining is such a big deal in
China.

------
awt
Bitcoin is a cult. Altcoins are cargo cults.

~~~
Nursie
Altcoins are _exactly the same_

~~~
Izkata
I think that's the idea:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming)

> Cargo cult programming is a style of computer programming characterized by
> the ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real
> purpose.

> Cargo cult programming can also refer to the practice of applying a design
> pattern or coding style blindly without understanding the reasons behind
> that design principle.

~~~
Nursie
I don't really believe those apply here - they're the same and they're
supposed to be, and they function the same. The level of understanding is
largely irrelevant.

------
wollw
It's forced me to think a lot more about the material worth of our economy,
specifically legal tender. I took a $20 Bank Note to the Coin Shop yesterday
to trade ~1g of Cotton and Flax for a $1 Unit (~1oz of Silver) which I'll be
tithing at Church this morning. The Nuts and Bolts of our economy started to
get obscure when I got interested in Cryptocurrencies and I feel like I'm
still recovering... From a certain perspective the copper traces in a Bitcoin
Miner are worth more than any "coin" it produces and should sooner be melted
down and turned into 1 Cent pieces so we can actually pass something that at
least resembles Art around instead of just a secure Ledger.

------
toss1
Interesting bit of spam on the forum from an account created ~2hours ago:
>globalrobin00 35 minutes ago [-] > Are you from US, and have a verified
coinbase account? > Then what are you waiting for when you can be earning up >
to 0.5 > BTC weekly, with your empty verified coinbase > wallet. Contact
+1-423-445-xxxx"

Apparently seeking to 1) get around Know Your customer rules using your
account or 2) escalate into your linked US bank accounts.

Purpose 1) will land you in serious legal jeopardy for a mere ~70mBTC per day,
while purpose 2) will drain your bank account at some point.

Quite cheap compensation for being a sink for toxic side-effects of money
laundering &/or theft.

------
btcobserve
Is the cult supported by artificial means? Often when cryptos including BTC
drop, Tether amount goes up.

They have expanded a lot since last year. Can they keep this up? How much
Tether can they print?

------
aviv
Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are not a store of value. They are a store
of hype and momentum. Right now they have none, hence the steady decline.

------
appleflaxen

      Cult: a system of religious veneration and devotion 
      directed toward a particular figure or object.
    
      Religion: a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes 
      supreme importance.
    

yes; in this way it seems very much like the cult of any other currency that
has no intrinsic value, but a population of people who are willing to accept
it as a surrogate or bookkeeping symbol.

------
rawoke083600
Thing about cults...(my opinion) it either works (crossfit etc) or is a lot of
fun (church/sex cults) :P

------
justatdotin
yeah but $US is a Cult

~~~
krrrh
It's a cult backed by taxing authority and police powers of a country.
Basically what we call a national currency, but sure, muddy the waters.

------
arisAlexis
first time in history innovative tech with tangible benefits is called a cult.
bitcoin hating is more of a cult

------
Myrmornis
Seems a silly article. The fact that bitcoin has attracted some idiots is
entirely consistent with the hypothesis that bitcoin is a great success, and
destined for continued success and not at all a cult.

------
PanosJee
The author is wrong as in presenting the cult as a flaw. Every imaginary human
construct has value because we have agreed collectively to subscribe value to
it. The stronger the religion the strongest the construct. For bitcoin to
become a dominant SoV we need to see some crypto
talibans/missionaries/crusaders.

------
phobosdeimos
Bitcoin is for the paranoid and conspiracy theorists.

The argument crypto currency supporters have is always Venezuela or the
European banking crisis (hilarious because citizens didn't actually lose any
money). If our banking system DOES collapse your crypto wallet won't save you.

~~~
swfsql
Venezuela citizens didn't lose any money? are you serious?

So you must be happy, since most Venezuelans may be millionaires now! (but
let's just forget about the fact that 1M+ from their currency is valued as
less than a dollar; and that this value loss have destroyed their lives)

~~~
phobosdeimos
Venezuela is irrelevant to the situation in most of the world, its an outlier.
Thats why it is a stupid argument for bitcoin. It would be like preparing for
volcanoes in Denmark.

Besides they are using USD and foreign banks in Venezuela not crypto currency.
The rich in Venezuela haven't lost a cent I am willing to bet. And last but
not least: bitcoin doesn't solve a single systemic problem Venezuela has. Its
a corrupt failed state that could have been a South American Norway.
Technology won't save it.

~~~
swfsql
>Venezuela is irrelevant (..)

so are your thoughts about Bitcoin from their (those whose lives were saved
because of cryptos) point of view, obviously.

>Besides they are using USD

A few may. But in such violent place, saving cryptos is cheaper than saving in
any (physical) cash. Easier to trade as well, since banking is not THAT
accessible and illegal USD trading have its safety's costs.

>bitcoin doesn't solve a single systemic problem Venezuela has.

all fiat is a systemic problem. According to Austrian School of Economics.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not appealing to authority or anything. This is not
meant for you. Someone might read our comments, care to actually know what's
going on and look further into it.

------
swfsql
Fiat money is a century-old cult. Democracy is a cult. Lefty progressiveness
is a cult. Bitcoining is a far less dangerous of a cult, because it's
completely optional, it doesn't interacts with whom doesn't want it.

Finally, just because some are having fun about mystery in a social network
doesn't mean they are a cult. I myself think satoshi is probably dead (frozen)
and will reborn in the future because bounty-hunters will demand his coins,
some kind of long-way holder. This is just fun.

------
Iv
Bitcoin is a tool for tax evasion and money exchange on criminal assets. It
turns out that also some geeks like to use it to bypass banks incompetence on
international funds transfers but tax evasion is the use that drives BTC's
value.

The cult is just a small visible part of it but is a pretty minor aspect of
it. BTC would exist without the cultists as long as Russian or Saudi assets
need to be transfered without too much oversight.

~~~
ComputerGuru
That’s media sensationalism. BTC is not remotely anonymous and is useless as a
tax evasion mechanism. Your money still has to go through _someone_ to turn
into BTC, and that’s the same as any other money laundering operation. Once
their books are audited, your “safe haven” is worth nothing.

~~~
LateRuin
Vice has a good video on drug dealers lining up to use a Bitcoin ATM every day
somewhere in an American ghetto. Bitcoin is 100% about drug dealing, gambling,
and tax avoidance.

You would have to be a total moron to go through all the hoops to use it
otherwise. Its kinda like running desktop linux in that way.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
A lot of Bitcoin volume is criminal in nature. What is contested is that a
large fraction of criminal fund flows go through Bitcoin.

For the same reasons it sucks for individuals (volatile, slow, expensive,
publicly recorded, difficult to spend and difficult to convert), it sucks for
criminals.

