If you’ve spent the last 9 years studying Bitcoin and becoming a maximalist
Now is the best time to learn about post-maximalism
Because we’ve always been told that Bitcoin would add all the interesting features from altcoins
Then all the builders got demoralized and pushed away by a culture that values price action much more than strengthening the fundamentals.
Bitcoin didn’t get CTV or OP_CAT.
Bitcoin didn’t become more fungible via Zerocash or MWEB.
Bitcoin didn’t get smart contracts.
Bitcoin didn’t even add a couple of OP codes to support the work of layer 2 builders.
The technology is out there. It’s been tested for many years on testnets and signets. It’s been tested on altcoins that never broke. It’s been tested on Liquid and Bitcoin Cash.
But somewhere along the way we became so complacent about Bitcoin that we forgot what it’s supposed to do!
In the meantime, Bitcoin has become less useful and more technologically stagnant…
while the altcoins became more useful and technologically divergent from the lazy forks of 2013.
Altcoins are no longer Bitcoin with a few changes. They are complete rewrites of the Bitcoin design. They pursue use cases instead of trying to build market narratives.
Some altcoins have the best privacy for financial transactions. Other altcoins have figured out scaling without bloating. There are altcoins that work as bona fide Bitcoin sidechains, processing more BTC than Lightning, Liquid, Rootstock & every other Bitcoin layer combined.
Post-maximalism is about finding these gems, using their tech and advocating for it to come to Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin doesn’t have a technological or talent problem: it has a cultural problem, in which users mindlessly dismiss everything else as a shitcoin while the project’s dominance on the market has lowered to 57%.
If the tech that can improve Bitcoin is in high demand, then Bitcoin devs are much more likely to try to bring it to the mother of all blockchains.
But if the tech is disrespected and doomed to get used by fragmented communities, it will never reach its full potential.
Bitcoin needs privacy to become a fungible currency.
Bitcoin needs to scale to onboard anyone who needs to use it.
Bitcoin needs to incorporate features from our broken financial system, in order to become able to replace banks entirely.
These goals will not get accomplished if the prevailing ideology doesn’t get replaced.
Bitcoin needs a new philosophy to meet the needs of the protocol and also enable exploration of new ideas without fear of excommunication and stigma.
Post-maximalism is it. We either build a robust Bitcoin that can do anything and challenge the status quo. Or else we accept that multiple networks can accomplish different goals that serve the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Regardless of the outcome, we aim to create a better financial system which is able to support parallel economies and offer an alternative to the CBDC world.
Post-maximalism is optimistic.
Post-maximalism is productive.
Post-maximalism is the answer to a culture that nurtures complacency and punishes experimentation.
Post-maximalism is what Bitcoin maximalism should have been all along, if the community members were honest and never became greedy.
But Bitcoin needs a new dominant ideology. And I hope post-maximalism is gonna be it!