Satoshi we have a problem

Historically the strength of Bitcoin has been in its community. I'm not sure if that community will remain an asset moving forward.

Today I made the below post on r/Bitcoin and much to my disappointment I was banned from the subreddit. This is an indication to me that the community has a major issue and makes me question some of my thoughts about what Bitcoin could be in the future.

Without a strong community, how will Bitcoin solve the problems required for broad adoption? I'm not sure it will.

Here is my post:

Date: 1/4 Location: r/Bitcon Title: Satoshi we have a problem

I’ve been a long time reader but something is happening that I need to talk about.

A few days ago I wrote a post here about how Bitcoin Cash was being used to accelerate transactions and asked if it bothered anyone else like it bothered me.

The post was almost immediately closed because it was considered “BCash talk”.

At the same time half of the posts on the top page for the subreddit were memes.

This, as a community, is something that we really need to think about.

At times the Bitcoin community feels less like a group of people who genuinely believe in the long term prospects of Bitcoin and more like a bunch of people standing around a craps table cheering and talking crap about other people’s bets.

But that’s not how Bitcoin is going to be successful.

We need to be able to talk about things even if those thing involve how Bitcoin is affected by other currencies. Otherwise we will end up in an echo chamber that doesn’t reflect reality.

The reality is that only a small % of people in the world currently know about the blockchain and what will happen over the next few years will determine how it’s defined and utilized for the majority of the world.

The reality is that we have issues. It’s too expensive to send transactions and they take too long. Layer 2 may address some of these things but nothing has shipped yet and any conversation about how other blockchains are doing a better job is heresy.

The reality is that if we stick our head in the sand there is a non zero chance that we will wake up one day and find that Bitcoin has become an altcoin.

It’s a fallacy to think that what has worked for us so far, when we have low double digit millions users, will continue to work in the future when we will need billions. And right now is a critical inflection point where the blockchain will start to become widely used so it’s more important then ever to discuss the good and the bad about Bitcoin in its current state.

Maybe this post will get me banned from the sub reddit but I’m hoping that it will make at least some people think.

Sorry for any typos. I haven’t had my coffee yet.