WBD532 Audio Transcription

The Role of Bitcoin Maximalism Part 2 with Pete Rizzo

Release date: Wednesday 27th July

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Pete Rizzo. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.

Pete Rizzo is the editor of Bitcoin Magazine, and one of Bitcoin’s leading journalists. In this interview, we discuss Bitcoin maximalism in terms of how it should be defined and rationalised, the moral lens of maximalists, and maximalism’s advantages and limitations.

“The problem that Bitcoin maximalism is trying to solve, is it’s trying to get people to provide their human action to furthering Bitcoin and is trying to discourage them from building things where their financial incentives would be greater to do that elsewhere.”

— Pete Rizzo

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: Hello, Rizzo.

Pete Rizzo: Peter McCormack.

Peter McCormack: How are you?

Pete Rizzo: I'm well, enjoying the bear market.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, well you predicted it.  You're a cycle maximalist.

Pete Rizzo: I'm a cyclone?

Peter McCormack: Cycle maximalist.

Pete Rizzo: Cycoin?  What does that mean?

Peter McCormack: You told me you were a cycle maximalist.

Pete Rizzo: Oh, cycle maximalist.  Okay, I've got to get --

Danny Knowles: Not Cycoin!

Peter McCormack: No.  You said you were a cycle maximalist when we spoke previously, and you said it's going to do the same shit again.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, feeling pretty good about that one.

Peter McCormack: So, you sold into it?

Pete Rizzo: I did not.

Peter McCormack: I thought you were a cycle maximalist.

Pete Rizzo: Well, I think it's about mentally preparing.  So, I do still believe that Bitcoin is cyclical, so if we want to start on economic grounds, I think that's a good one, because I still think the Bitcoin cycle theory is intact, based on my defining of it.  I know that there's a lot of attack on that these days, but I think that right now, you can economically coordinate around Bitcoin.

If we back up, there's this big trend in the space right now, which is that every four years, we're seeing these big bubbles in the Bitcoin and wider crypto industry.  I still think that one of the big unanswered questions is, "Why is this occurring; and why is this occurring with such regularity?"  So, there's two ways to approach that question.  Either you try to dismantle it and say that the question doesn't exist, or you accept the question.  So, I think we have to accept the frame.  Do you accept that there have been four Bitcoin bubbles; and, do you accept that they have been four years apart?

Peter McCormack: I accept that, yeah.

Pete Rizzo: Right, okay, so then that's an interesting piece of data, right.  So that says you, as an individual, have to say, "Do I think that this is going to happen again; or, do I think that it's not going to happen again?"  I like the cycle theory, because like many of the great things in the cryptocurrency space, it's like a very unhappy medium.  It satisfies no one and everyone hates it equally for different reasons, sort of like Tether; a good example.  Nobody wants Bitcoin to be cyclical, because that says that we have to go through another downturn; it says we're not the master of our domain, to some extent; it means that we're subject to the economic advancement of Bitcoin and there's very little that we, as humans, can do to impact that.  That's one definition by which it's unfriendly.

But the Bitcoin cycles are a pretty big factor in me understanding or coming over to the Bitcoin maximalist camp, because you know I was a journalist, and trying to understand, "Okay, what is happening here; why is Bitcoin successful?"  The further I go back into the archives, the more that I dig into it, I think the only thing that really separates Bitcoin from the other digital cash projects before it is its economics.  I recently spent the last few months digging into the 1990s projects --

Peter McCormack: Hold on, what separates it from its other projects?

Pete Rizzo: The other digital cash attempts in the 1990s that were unsuccessful.

Peter McCormack: You have to include decentralisation in that.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, that is a factor as well.  So again, I recently just went through this whole period where I dug through the 1990s' digital cash projects archives myself, and I'd never really done the primary research of looking at that and going through month by month, "Okay, what are they talking about on cypherpunk mail lists.  And I think there's really two leapfrogs there.

The first is that David Chaum essentially, in the 1980s, figures out how to make digital cash work.  He just does it with a patented process called "blind signatures".  So then, flash forward to the 1990s, he's not released that project and he's tried to commercialise that project by selling it to banks.  So they need a way to route around that, so then you get to essentially decentralisation, because you can't replicate Chaum's solution.  So, you have to find some way to distribute the operations of it essentially, or you violate his patent.

Then, once they figured that out, there's a series of attempts to try to make different digital cashes, and then the problem that they kept running into was essentially, there was no reason for people to use it as money; there was no reason for early adopters to start using it.  And this was actually true of eCash and DigiCash as well.  So, you could have a digital dollar on the internet; David Chaum created that in the 1990s, he offered that as a service.

Peter McCormack: They created a shop as well, didn't they?

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, they had a Missouri bank offer it, you could create an eCash account and merchants could accept it, but there was no reason for that flywheel of adoption to start.  So, I don't know, I've just become increasingly convinced over the years -- and this is why my sympathies towards Bitcoin maximalism and economic and monetary Bitcoin maximalism essentially starts there; it's that really what we're talking about is, the innovation of Bitcoin here is economic, it has nothing to do with the particular component pieces of its technology, which were previously around.  It's that finally, in Bitcoin, there is something that is released that people actually adopt, start using.

This is actually particularly something you really notice before Bitcoin has a price.  So, there's this period in late-2009, early-2010, where Bitcoin is increasing in price, but there's no price; it's a weird concept.  But it's increasingly clear that Bitcoin is more scarce and people are starting to price it, they're starting to offer goods and services in it, and they're starting to try to earn Bitcoin in increasing ways.  And again, Bitcoin still has no -- Bitcoin is still worth -- $1 is worth like 200 Bitcoin, something like that.  You're still in miniscule variations, and there's still no exchanges.  All of the economic scarcity and pressure is happening within a small component -- there's no exchange or market to metastasise that in, there's no market price, but yet there is demand and scarcity.

So, you can see the impacts of demand and scarcity and the monetary attributes of Bitcoin working without the price or the cryptocurrency market.  I think it's really interesting to divorce those two things, and actually say even before there were exchanges, even before there was a Bitcoin price, you still had essentially the same dynamic, which was this idea that Bitcoin was increasingly scarce, it was increasingly valued, and then people were competing to acquire it.  And then, what was increasing was their competition to acquire it.  That then metastasises in a dollar price at an exchange and then that resources; but the actual behaviour occurred first.

I think that's the really important part that a lot of the cryptocurrency general people miss.  Bitcoin does have a unique start.

Peter McCormack: And do you think the increases in the price, that hodl mentality, forced it into a place where people started spending it, because people started accumulating value; so, they'll spend a bit, sell a bit off, but everyone else is still holding?  So, they've got value, and then you always get to a bit where you're like, "Well, I've got quite a bit of this, I've got enough now to spend a bit".

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, there's this interesting push-pull dynamic, where people within the Bitcoin economy are always trying to move it forward.  And the question is, "When do you personally take responsibility to do that?  Laszlo offering to buy pizzas for Bitcoin was essentially, he had been somewhat publicly shamed for acquiring too much Bitcoin, and then he paid it forward.  Then, essentially the economy developed.

So, I guess all this is to say, essentially to your question, I still think the economics of Bitcoin are something that are really not well understood; I still think the cryptocurrency, the lens on the whole space, tends to gravitate towards technology.  So, we were even talking about Bitcoin maximalism against other cryptocurrencies, really we're debating technology a lot; but economics are important.  I think a key part of Bitcoin's success was economics, and that leads me to be very sympathetic to the cycle theory of Bitcoin; because again, I think you have to accept that these factors that made Bitcoin successful always occur, they incurred in perpetuity as far back as the earliest days of the project, and we're just seeing them at a different level now.  But that gives me a lot of confidence that they actually occurred prior to that, they were pre-existing.

Peter McCormack: So, this cycle maximalism, does it give you the confidence then, because sometimes you doubt things?  I can't remember, who were we talking to the other day who said --

Danny Knowles: It was yesterday.

Peter McCormack: Harry?

Danny Knowles: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: Harry Sudock, he was like, "Well, when the price hit $3,000 last time I was like, 'What went wrong?  What if it just doesn't work?'"

Pete Rizzo: I think that's the interesting thing, and why I would say Bitcoin cycles are always an unpopular thing, because they're very non-intuitive.  This idea that something would be regular or cyclical is something that everybody wants to fight against, both people who are against the idea and the people who are for Bitcoin.  No party wants that to be true, so therefore it's the least popular middle equilibrium, is that just keeps occurring, merely because of its huge unpopularity.

But again, I would say that I think a lot of people get hung up on cycle theory being about specific things.  So, I had a conversation with Pierre Rochard recently where I defended this point.  Essentially I said that to me, cycle theory just states that as long as people are economically coordinating around the Bitcoin halving, or the Bitcoin's monetary policy, for their own advantage, for their own economic advantage, as long as that coordination takes place and people coordinate around the monetary policy changes, the cycle theory is still intact.

I'll give you an example of that.  So, we know that the next halving is coming up in 2024.

Peter McCormack: How long are we away from that?

Danny Knowles: I think April 2024, so a year and a half, just over.

Pete Rizzo: So, it's to your advantage to acquire Bitcoin in some period before that, and probably thereafter that.  You would know, based on past performance.  So the question then is, "Will people economically coordinate to the behaviour again and will it occur again?"  So, Pierre was basically saying to me, "What are the conditions under which you abandon this theory?" and I basically said, "If the Bitcoin price were to hit an all-time high again before the halving, basically people coordinated for their economic benefit without the halving being a significant stakeholder at all, I would say that the theory is dead".

As long as that economic coordination happens in any way after the halving, somewhat as a result of the halving, it doesn't matter where after it occurs, it doesn't matter what peak it occurs, it doesn't matter at what time of the year it occurs; it just states that, "Does the actual mechanism work?  Does the actual scarcity of the money within the money supply and the changing dynamics of that encourage people to economically coordinate on a repeated basis, as a result of policy?"

Peter McCormack: So, in nine months, the countdown will begin, because the countdown starts from a year.  I mean, we've seen people talk about it a little bit.  And then last time, it was front run about six months.

Pete Rizzo: I actually want to be clear.  So, I thought the Bitcoin halving was the stupidest thing ever for many years.  So again, people who don't know about my background, I was an Editor of CoinDesk for many years and was essentially in the nocoiner camp for nothing other than my own probably inability to intellectualise things at that point.  But people would come up to me and they'd be like, "What do you think about the halving?  Halving, halving, is it going to go up; is it going to go down; is it going to be so much?"  I'm like, "Oh my God, get out of my face, I don't know what to do with you.  That's a weird pipedream that you have".

So again, I understand being somewhat intellectually disgusted with these ideas.  It's something that I'm really sympathetic to.  I've been in that camp.

Peter McCormack: Well, the original theory doesn't make sense, in that the idea being that the supply halves and therefore there's less supply in the market being sold off by the miners, because we've had the experience where miners actually don't even sell sometimes.

Pete Rizzo: Again, that's just about the availability of money within the economy, and then assuming that demand is constant, or demand increases because people think that it's to their advantage.  So this is why the only term that I want to stick in there for people to gravitate to is "economic coordination".  Do people coordinate around Bitcoin for their own economic benefit; and, does that happen as a result of the policies and not the code?

If it does and that is true, then it's true that Bitcoin is an economic system, because you can coordinate around that.  It doesn't mean that the code is the thing that's doing that, it's that we as humans have agency.  Right now, maybe you're not buying as much Bitcoin, there's just a big bubble, things are low, maybe you're not sure of them, maybe you are not economically coordinating around Bitcoin.  The question is, "Will you; and when will you again?"

Peter McCormack: Waiting for the herd?

Pete Rizzo: Well again, Bitcoin, the thing that it has about itself, so I think Juern wrote this, and I've been increasingly really sitting with this and thinking about this, is that he wrote of Bitcoin that, and this was in 2011, he's an open-source kind of computer science guy; but he essentially said, "The only thing that Bitcoin really achieved was that it didn't get everything right about digital cash, it just ensured that it would continue to exist in the future, long enough for people to solve the problems.  That was the thing that it got right".

It didn't get everything right, it was working and it continued to work, and you could continue to improve it.  And essentially, his argument was that that was enough.  That was the thing that prior, and again if you look at the history of digital cash, there wasn't anything to work on, there was nothing that was public for many, many years.  Nothing got past the theory or being released on a mail list, one guy downloading; simply nothing existed.

Peter McCormack: But there's a term for that, isn't there, "The longer something's existed, the more likely it is to continue to exist"; I can't remember what the name of it is?

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, there is, yeah.

Peter McCormack: Something's law or something's theorem.

Pete Rizzo: There's always a law or theorem for everything though, right?

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  I forget them all.

Pete Rizzo: So, Rizzo's theorem, I guess, would be --

Peter McCormack: Rizzo's!

Pete Rizzo: -- would be that Bitcoin cycles are really about economic coordination.  As long as Bitcoin continues to exist and other assets continue to exist, and people exist in other economies, as long as Bitcoin creates the conditions under which other people will economically coordinate around it, then you would imagine that that activity would be somewhat resultant of the halving and the monetary policy changes.  Or, you don't believe that the monetary policy matters, which I don't really understand that view at all.

Peter McCormack: What if they don't?

Pete Rizzo: What if they don't think it matters?

Peter McCormack: If they don't economically coordinate around this next halving?

Pete Rizzo: Well, plenty of people are not economically coordinating around Bitcoin.  But you could argue that over time, the people who are economically coordinating around Bitcoin has gone larger.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so it has to be enough.  But what if this halving theorem dies?

Pete Rizzo: Well, people say that before every halving, right?

Peter McCormack: Of course, but we know more now.

Pete Rizzo: What do we know that we didn't know before?  Like, what?

Peter McCormack: Well, I guess before, it was deeply embedded the idea that the market would be flooded with a lot less coins that would be making newer coins worth a lot more, but it was a narrative built.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, I don't understand this at all, because the price went down to $3,000 then went up to $60,000 within a few months.  So, if that doesn't do it for you, I don't know what to tell you!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but I wonder if it's more the narrative for people, rather than the actual economics?  They bought the narrative, they think the halving's coming, they think it's going to be front run, "It's happened four times before, it must happen again"; rather than, actually it is a response to the --

Pete Rizzo: Well, there are two countertheories to that.  So, one of the theories is essentially -- so, this is the official market hypothesis, I think Nic Carter wrote about this that, "Essentially, all information known about a market should be priced in, so people should price in the future halving".  The problem that I have with that is that it assumes that everyone understands Bitcoin, it assumes that everyone understands how it works, and I think that's incorrect. 

The Bitcoin market is by nature inefficient, because not all of the stakeholders in it have the same knowledge.  So, Bitcoin has this interesting game theoretical asymmetry, where people coming in who are new don't have the same information as people who have been here, so then they play the game differently, so they're economically coordinating differently.  But again, all this goes back to, I think, that the same behaviours, and my point with the original diatribe on, "Okay, well these behaviours will always present, irregardless of a cryptocurrency market, irregardless of exchanges, irregardless of there even being a price, Bitcoin created the conditions under which its adoption occurred, by making the coins scarce to acquire".

Right, okay, let me just draw a picture, because I think it will make it -- it's late-2009, you've just heard about Bitcoin, there's no price, and it's too hard for you to mine, so you can't mine it.  So, how do you get it?  So, more people want to acquire the thing.  Bitcoin seems to create the conditions under which, again, that wants to distribute to the market.  Again, I'm not an economist, so I don't really understand this all on aggregate. 

But I would say an interesting period, if I was an economist, to study would be this time period, because it seems to be that these same behaviours seem to actually predate there actually being a price, or a cryptocurrency exchange, or any sort of cryptocurrency market, where Bitcoin created the conditions under which, again, with an influx in demand, there was just this explosion of interest and use.  And again, the price is a signal of that; it is not the entirety of that. 

It actually says a lot that it occurred without it, because if it occurred without it, I'm much more likely to believe that it will continue into the future, because it was apriority, it existed.  It was something that existed without the current conditions, and now should only continue to benefit from the continued conditions; it's more accessible.

Peter McCormack: Bring on the next run then.

Pete Rizzo: Well, look, I'm coordinating around -- I'll just be honest and lay it on the table, there's a bear market, I guess I don't have anything to lose; I'm coordinating around Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Well if you are, then I am, and then if I am, Danny should and so should Jeremy, and then…

Pete Rizzo: Right.  But we're all playing the game differently.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but similarly.

Pete Rizzo: We're not coordinating the same.

Peter McCormack: But similarly.  We're all coordinating for an upwards move.

Pete Rizzo: Eventually, right, yeah.

Peter McCormack: None of us are selling.

Pete Rizzo: No, that's right.

Peter McCormack: So, we're just accumulating --

Pete Rizzo: But just because you're not selling doesn't mean that you're buying, so there's different behaviours.  So for myself, I did not buy Bitcoin at all for 2021 or 2022.  Is it 2022 yet?  I don't know what year it is.

Peter McCormack: We're in 2022.

Pete Rizzo: Okay, that's good to know!  I only recently started; I started economically coordinating around Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Well, your timing's probably better than the majority of mine in the last four years, three years.

Pete Rizzo: Well, so again, I think part of the cycle theory as well, I don't know how much you want to spend on this, but I think there's a point at which the resulting price activity and euphoria overwhelms the cryptocurrency companies, the for-profit companies in the industry, and they simply can't continue to function under that demand.  Then essentially, it's their capitulation that usually signals the end of the bull cycle.

Peter McCormack: And then we come back.

Pete Rizzo: We made it fully circle.

Peter McCormack: Full circle.  Well, the other thing that comes with a bear cycle is people falling out with each other a little bit more regularly.

Pete Rizzo: Well, we talked about this last time and I would repeat it again, I think there's a tendency of human beings to ascribe that the things that they're saying in the market and doing in the market are the things that are impacting Bitcoin's growth and its price movement.  And then, we form an attachment to these ideas, and when it turns out that we're wrong, it's painful because we're like, "Yeah, we were so good at talking about macroeconomics", and whatever the fuck and, "Oh, that's the thing that was getting all these investors in and that's gone". 

No, you created that attachment to that narrative, the narrative didn't really matter.  Hopefully the narrative advanced our understanding a bit, but we're in the process of throwing out these narratives repeatedly.  Since I've been in this space, when I came in in 2013, there were whole different narratives and we learnt some of this.

Peter McCormack: What was back then?

Pete Rizzo: Payments, Bitcoin for payments.  Bitcoin 2013, the conference title was Bitcoin for Payments.  All the start-ups were coming in, Silicon Valley was coming in, Andreessen Horowitz was here to invest in Bitcoin and Bitcoin companies, the suits were arriving.  All the old riff-raff was getting pushed about.  If you were speaking about anti-governments or Bitcoin as a tool against the state, you were essentially shifted out, you were shown the door.  And that was the talk.

So, every cycle has this thing that happens, where human beings, they watch what happens, they think that they're involved in what Bitcoin is doing, and that what's happening in the Bitcoin market says something about the value of what they're doing.  And again, my bet over the last cycle was that that would be wrong again, and here we are, we weren't correct.  But we learned a little bit, we advanced a little bit, and I think that's the goal.

Peter McCormack: So, we learn every cycle what narrative it isn't?

Pete Rizzo: No, I don't think that's totally true.  I think what happens is, to come out of the bear market, you need to have a new narrative set around Bitcoin.  So, coming out of the fork wars in 2017, you were around for that, there was a tremendous disillusionment with the Bitcoin community.  It wasn't clear why Bitcoin was working, we just got this period where everybody beat each other up for two years; essentially, Bitcoin succeeded despite all of our failures.

Then from that, we get the Bitcoin standard, which is essentially this tome about economics and how Bitcoin functions economically, some of which I've said in a different, hopefully more colloquial way than Saifedean has, but again this idea that there's this history of economics, economics has always worked in a certain way, Bitcoin in an instantiation of that and that we perhaps don't -- our efforts are not what is propelling Bitcoin.  What is propelling Bitcoin is the natural economic progress of a hard money, etc.  There are 1,800 different books about it and everybody's got a blog about monetary whatever the fuck, and they're lifting weights, and who knows.

Then you get, everybody's eating steaks and thinking that this is it.  And so there's the germ of the seed of an idea which is good.  Then I think the thing that happens in bull markets, again, is there's this somewhat tremendous theatre around it, where everybody buys into that it's happening now, "I'm here, I'm special, it has to be happening, I couldn't be in Bitcoin early, it has to be happening because I'm here".  And then we just reset.  People love the meme, "We're early".  Well, hey, you're early!

Peter McCormack: So, we're waiting for a new narrative?

Pete Rizzo: Well, I think the narrative process -- okay, so I'm not cynical about -- I'm a little cynical about the narrative process, but it is important.  So, we are trying to understand scientific phenomena.  So, I had an argument about this with a journalist recently, and I said I think this is one of the biggest agreements in the space is that people are like, "Oh, well the narratives are all changing", and there's always these changing narratives around Bitcoin, and I was like, "Yeah", because in science, you're trying to describe the natural world, and it is actually the descriptions of the world that change.

When we were cavemen and we were trying to understand the universe, the universe has existed in the same way.  There were always stars in the sky, and even if we made them into little shapes of people riding horses, they still fucking existed.  And when we decided that the Earth was the centre of the universe, the universe was the same way it is right now.  We understand the universe a little bit better right now.  We have this model of the Sun as the centre of the universe, and that the universe is expanding.

So again, the reality of the instance has been the same in every period, and it is precisely the descriptions of the reality that change.  And I think in the scientific process, that actually is what should be happening.

Peter McCormack: I like that, I really like that comparison to, we can't understand what we don't see; but as we see more, we understand more about it.

Pete Rizzo: Right, and I think Bitcoin, it's hard for people to understand that that is a possible thing with Bitcoin, because people don't…  There's this weird --

Peter McCormack: It's tangible.

Pete Rizzo: At the schism between nocoinerism, Bitcoin maximalism and altcoinism is this weird idea that both the nocoiners and the altcoin people are uncomfortable with, that there's something special about Bitcoin.  And both the other camps implicitly reject this.  So therefore, they also reject this idea that Bitcoin has a permanence as a piece of software, because it's digital.  So the idea that Bitcoin -- so, when I say the solar system argument, you would say, "Oh, well the solar system is permanent".  It's like, "Maybe.  It actually will explode at some point, so if that's your feeling about it, then I guess, great". 

But Bitcoin has sort of the same thing.  We expect Bitcoin to be permanent, because it continues to work, and it's shown no signs that it won't continue to work in perpetuity.  So, the Bitcoin maximalist view, I think, definitely takes that understanding of it really.  Bitcoin is something that exists, none of us created it, none of us are responsible for it, so it's only something that we can continue to understand in an increasing degree.  And we have to accept that we don't actually understand all of it.

Nocoiners and the altcoin groups, they both reject that.  They both view Bitcoin as the sum of individual human action, or narrative formation, or that there's something about Bitcoin that can be improved.  But I think there is some weird root schism here, and it's an inability -- it's like a specific disagreement about the permanence of Bitcoin, and whether something digital can be permanent.  And I think bitcoiners actually start from that assumption.  It's a behavioural trait I noticed amongst the Bitcoin Core developers very early on.  They all saw, and you'll probably agree with this, they all saw themselves as being outside of Bitcoin, not really responsible for it; but then, also not being really able to change it, and then having to have a community consensus around it.

So, there was always this weird, I don't know, this behavioural element around Bitcoin, where there was no leader, there is no "we"; there's a group of people using a software and there's an expectation that that software will continue to exist, because people hold economic value in it.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but I just really like that idea that we don't know what it will be, or what it will become.  I like that idea; it kind of humbles you, rather than saying -- because we've been through that vehicle and, "It's gold 2.0, Bitcoin is inflation hedge --"

Pete Rizzo: Well so myself, staying outside the process, I prefer to view this as, if this is us actually being -- we're actually responsibly participating in the act of science, by continuing to describe the phenomena that we can't explain.  And then again, I understand why people have trouble with that idea, because again, you have to come to the view that Bitcoin will continue to exist, that no one is responsible for it.

Again, this is a different thing, where I think a lot of journalists really struggle with this, where the difference with other cryptocurrency projects is that there is actually someone who launched it, and they launched it with a specific promise.

Peter McCormack: And they're working towards that promise.

Pete Rizzo: Right.  And then you get into whether Bitcoin also did that.  Did Satoshi do that?  And, if Satoshi did do that…?  So, there's all these second-order questions, but I think again, at the root level of this, there's a disagreement about whether Bitcoin is special or unique, and going back to the original part of this conversation, my argument would be that it is, because it is quite simply the first project to emerge, from a series of projects, to be successful, and that it was specifically successful because of its economics.  And the economics are the thing that just allows it to continue to exist.  So, it is precisely the permanence of it that is the result of the technology development, and so that's where I start a little bit with Bitcoin maximalism.

Peter McCormack: So, where would you go with ETH; why has ETH continued to exist?  Is it the same, because of the economics?

Pete Rizzo: Well, I replied to Joe Weisenthal on this on Twitter, but I do definitely think this is true, is that I think the crypto asset thesis is dead.  I think it's inarguably dead, because as Kyle Samani has been talking about the decoupling for years and years, there is no other crypto asset that has a meaningful economic regularity that exists outside of Bitcoin.  If you want to go back to the space argument, there are all these little asteroids uselessly orbiting Bitcoin, they just have none of their own gravitational pull, or they would differentiate from Bitcoin meaningfully.

So again, I think the route here if this really is going to be another conversation about Bitcoin maximalism, some of the route divergences of Bitcoin maximalism is this permanence thing, it's the fact that it's the economics of the thing and not the technology, and it metastasises in all these different ways, and one of them is what we just discussed.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, well I definitely want to talk about Bitcoin maximalism because you wrote about it again.  I always find it a fascinating subject, and I definitely meander with my own personal views on it and what it is and what its benefits are.  But I've certainly been on the receiving end of criticism and attempts to cancel and blocks.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, same with me.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, regularly.

Pete Rizzo: I'm a very unlikely spokesperson for Bitcoin maximalism, just to be very clear.

Peter McCormack: Well, I'm a spokesman for the bits of it I understand and can define, and --

Pete Rizzo: Well again, I think that's why I've been able to speak about it, is because I have spent so long trying to understand it.  I don't think I immediately understood Bitcoin maximalism, I didn't understand why it existed; and then, I spent the better part of the last year writing a bunch of esoteric Forbes articles essentially about, "What is it that defines Bitcoin maximalism?"

I think again, this is like going back to another conversation I had with a journalist recently, it's sort of if you get rid of the frame that Bitcoin is part of markets, like markets coverage and these crazy fandoms around investment assets these days, you're left with the fact that there are different sociologies within the cryptocurrency space.  And those sociologies form around things that are actually occurring within the technology.  So then, what you're really debating when you debate any of these things is, "What is the relationship between the sociology and the actual technology?" 

So that's actually if you were to pinpoint a point of disagreement, it would be that Bitcoin maximalism is a sociology, people who believe that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that will persevere in the future and it's the best hope for humanity to continue building on that.  Does that properly reflect what's happening within the field of the technology, and I would parentheses (and the markets), because I don't know, for some reason the cryptocurrency people generally really care about the markets for some reason?  So, those are the two layers of the question.  So we have actually a few different sociologies that emerge, and they all have to have a stance on the technology.

Again, just partitioning in here, if you come from this idea of thinking that Bitcoin is like GameStop or AMC, and all that kind of whacky stuff, that's not.  Those are just stock investment phenomena.  That's a completely separate phenomenon.  Here in cryptocurrency, it's like, "Why do we talk about Bitcoin maximalism?"  We're talking about a sociology that's developed around a series of technological claims.  And then the question is, "Are those things related, and how related are they?"

I would say that the cryptocurrency, a large group is the same, people are agnostic to cryptocurrency, they dislike cryptocurrency as a whole, they have a certain world view and that's related to certain actual things that are occurring with technology; and then the nocoiners as well.  The nocoiners have a stance and it's related to the technology.  In this case, they reject it.

Peter McCormack: Well, I think we talk about it, because we ascribe a certain number of behaviours or expectations from those who we think are it; so externals, your nocoiners or your altcoiners, they ascribe a certain behaviour, usually in a pejorative way; and then internally, it is owned by maximalists, who also ascribe a certain number of behaviours or expectations they have of people they think are maximalists, or think should be maximalists.  So, I think it groups together things such as -- or it can even be used to coordinate cohorts of people that you think, "These are my like-minded people".

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, this is where I think a lot of the weaker criticisms of Bitcoin maximalism have been aimed lately.

Peter McCormack: This isn't a criticism, this is an observation.

Pete Rizzo: Well, they aim the criticisms at the sociology of it, and they don't actually connect the two.  You actually have to connect the two, otherwise your criticism is somewhat meaningless.  I wrote this in the Forbes piece that I wrote about Bitcoin maximalism.  This is the same as saying, "Okay, well the woke movement is stupid because they hate straw or plastic; paper straws.  The whole thing's garbage, because all these people are yelling at me because I have plastic straws".  You can engage in this sort of behaviour where you're dismissing the behaviour of a certain group of people without interfacing with the ideology.  You're welcome to do that.  It is simply not a useful human endeavour and I refuse to participate in it, because it's so colossally dumb.

Peter McCormack: But I'm just observing and you're calling it a criticism.

Pete Rizzo: Well, I think that what I was saying is that I think a lot of the criticisms -- so again, what's been happening in the space that's inspired the writing is that there are people who are saying, "We need to reject Bitcoin maximalism, or we need to move beyond Bitcoin maximalism", and their criticisms are specifically aimed at the sociology around it.

Peter McCormack: But I, in some ways, think that's stupid, because I don't think there is a clear understanding of what Bitcoin maximalism is.  I think some of the people that think you need to move beyond it, or think you need to change it, are focusing on one part of Bitcoin maximalism, and those defending it are focusing on another part, and they're actually talking across each other but they think it's the same thing.

For example, somebody might be defending it talking about they care about the protocol, and their behaviour is about defending the protocol, because they think it might be attacked by another Roger Ver type; they're defending that and they think that's what they're doing.  Whereas, the person criticising is saying, "Yeah, I agree with all of that, but I disagree with this cancelling mob culture, abusive nature", and they're talking across each other.

Whereas in reality, they both want probably the same thing, unless it's an altcoiner who hates Bitcoin; unless it's a Kyle Samani who just wants to criticise it for the sake of it.  If they're both bitcoiners -- because I don't care.  I'm disinterested in what altcoiners think about Bitcoin, I'm disinterested in what altcoiners think about Bitcoin maximalism; it means nothing to me.  What I care about is where two people consider themselves bitcoiners, and they become mortal enemies, yet they have the same enemy.

It's that old saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".  Okay, we agree on 95% of stuff, but because of this 5%, 10% over here, we're going to fall out, and then we're going to waste time arguing over that shit when we could be working together.  That's the bit I find most interesting, when bitcoiners fight bitcoiners.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, I think that's a little bit hard for me to interface with.  So, I think your claim is essentially that bitcoiners are fighting against bitcoiners, so them you have to get over the claim.  In my view, and I think I've said the same on a podcast before, there are no bitcoiners.  Either your actions align with Bitcoin or they don't.  You cannot be a bitcoiner just by declaration; that just doesn't make sense.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but how do you then align with -- what's the set of rules?

Pete Rizzo: In any specific action you take, it either aligns with Bitcoin, or it's in significance with Bitcoin, or it does not align with Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: But where are the set of rules?  How do you define that; give me an example?

Pete Rizzo: Okay, I think we've said this before.  You go downstairs and you buy a coffee with your US dollars.  So, are you a bitcoiner?  Have you done anything good for Bitcoin in that moment?  The answer is no.

Peter McCormack: But hold on, that doesn't make any sense, because I'm still a bitcoiner.  I hold Bitcoin, I buy Bitcoin, I run a Bitcoin podcast, I'm still a bitcoiner, I just use my money downstairs, because it was convenient or I'm hodling.

Pete Rizzo: But in that moment, you were not doing anything related to Bitcoin, you were just a person living in the world!

Peter McCormack: So there's no being or not being a bitcoiner; there's only being one in a specific time?

Pete Rizzo: Well the question is, "Is your action good for Bitcoin or not?"

Peter McCormack: Well then, is every decision you have to make constantly about what's good for Bitcoin?

Pete Rizzo: No, absolutely not.  But if you are someone who is doing good for Bitcoin, and especially in certain contexts, then the answer would be yes.

Peter McCormack: Are you talking net good then?

Pete Rizzo: I think you're tripping me up a little bit here.  So, what I'm just trying to say is that --

Peter McCormack: I'm just using your example.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, my example is I don't think you -- all right, if you're a human being in the world and you're sitting in a soccer game, how are you a bitcoiner, because you identify as one?  Nothing about your human action is in any way good at that moment for the network.

Peter McCormack: How are you not a bitcoiner then?  What you're saying is, you can't be a bitcoiner.  There can only be periods of time where you are a bitcoiner.

Pete Rizzo: Right, I think that makes it easier to understand that specific actions you take can be negative for Bitcoin.  So, this is why I'm giving the example of criticising public figures --

Peter McCormack: Sorry, I want to focus on this bit, and I make get some backup from Danny here, I imagine.  What you're saying is, if I'm at a soccer game and I'm watching it, I'm not doing anything good for Bitcoin, so I'm not a bitcoiner; if I go and buy coffee and I spend dollars, that's not good for Bitcoin, so I'm not a bitcoiner?

Pete Rizzo: No, it depends on your perception of it.  What I'm saying is that in aggregate, you should strive to do as much as you can for the benefit of Bitcoin and then in instances when you could take an action to benefit Bitcoin and then you don't, you are doing something that is worthy of criticism by other bitcoiners.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but again, sorry, I'm going to stick on this, because that's fine.  If you do something against Bitcoin, you're worthy for criticism.  But you've been -- this is a really opaque definition of what makes you a bitcoiner; it's so opaque.

Pete Rizzo: It's actually very clear.

Peter McCormack: So how do you score this?  You're only a bitcoiner if you're constantly doing good for -- every decision you make is good for Bitcoin?

Pete Rizzo: No, not at all.  I reject this idea that you can -- the entirety of your being can manifest into you being a human being who is wholly positive for Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: No, I've not said that in the slightest.  What I'm saying is, if we're asking the question, "Are you a bitcoiner or not?" you're saying, if I go and buy a cup of coffee and I don't use my Bitcoin, I'm not a bitcoiner because I should have spent Bitcoin.

Pete Rizzo: I'm saying that your specific action didn't align with anything that would have been positive for the network.

Peter McCormack: I have two issues with that.  That's your observation, that's your choice, that's not mine.  I don't think if Danny goes and buys a cup of coffee with his dollars, I don't ascribe that to him not being a bitcoiner.

Pete Rizzo: But it's quite simply an action that has nothing to do with Bitcoin, is my only point.

Peter McCormack: But then we go back to the point that you're saying you can only be a bitcoiner in specific timeframes.

Pete Rizzo: That's my contention, because I think otherwise, it just appears very illogical.  It's hard to live in a world where someone is purely a bitcoiner, and then any action that they take is then somehow absolved because it doesn't -- this is the whole ridiculous thing about, "This guy's done so much for Bitcoin, so why are you piling on him in this one instance?" and the issue is because in that instance, the action didn't align with Bitcoin and it was objectively a thing that people want to criticise.

Peter McCormack: No, I follow that.  Everyone should be open to criticism, everyone, that's fine, and you can criticise any action.

Pete Rizzo: So, the problem I have with your definition is that --

Peter McCormack: I haven't defined anything.

Pete Rizzo: You have, you've said that you can just always be a bitcoiner purely by declaration.

Peter McCormack: Did I say that?  I don't think I said that.  I'm trying to understand your definition; that's my point.  It's like, I think what you're saying is you're never a bitcoiner --

Pete Rizzo: Okay, so are you a person who owns a couch?

Peter McCormack: I own a couch.

Pete Rizzo: Right, okay, great.  So then how much of your daily life is influenced by that?

Peter McCormack: Very little.

Pete Rizzo: Okay, right.  So then your whole life doesn't become coloured by this one utilitarian decision that you have.  Are you a homeowner?

Peter McCormack: Yes.

Pete Rizzo: Are you always a homeowner, in every instance, for the rest of time you're a homeowner?

Peter McCormack: Well, I am now.

Pete Rizzo: You own a car?

Peter McCormack: I own a car.

Pete Rizzo: Okay, so then we're building up a multi-varied idea of you as a human being that has nothing to do with you being a bitcoiner.  You're a human being that interfaces with the world in a lot of ways.  Are you a British person?

Peter McCormack: Yes, I am a British person.  And I'm always a British person until I choose not to become a British person.

Pete Rizzo: But you're not born into being Bitcoin like a bitcoiner; there's no Bitcoin country, there's no nationality.

Peter McCormack: No, so this is what I'm trying to get to.  Is the point you're saying, "You're never really a bitcoiner; you're just a person who makes decisions that affect Bitcoin"?  That would make sense, if that's what you're saying, then you're retiring the term "bitcoiner", so there are no bitcoiners.

Pete Rizzo: I've never used the term "bitcoiner".

Peter McCormack: But I'm saying, in this instance, you're saying it's just not a relevant term?

Pete Rizzo: Again, I think that -- all right, so maybe to paraphrase this in a way that might relate to people, is there's currently a lot of anger in the community about who or who is not a bitcoiner.  Again, I simply reject that framing, because I don't think it's useful, because it's quite possible for you as a human being to do many things that are good for Bitcoin, and some things that are not good for Bitcoin, and then for you to receive criticism about those things that are not good for Bitcoin, and for those people to be entirely valid in their criticisms, or not valid in those criticisms.

Peter McCormack: I agree that you absolutely should be open to criticism.  But I'm just, again, I'm not trying to argue against you, I'm just trying to understand your framing.  If you're saying you can't be a bitcoiner, then I don't think you can be a Bitcoin maximalist.

Pete Rizzo: I think you can be a Bitcoin maximalist!

Peter McCormack: But what if in that moment, your actions aren't good for Bitcoin?

Pete Rizzo: Because I would define a Bitcoin maximalist as someone who's aspirationally trying to do as much as they can to advance the Bitcoin protocol.

Peter McCormack: You see, do you know what I think the slight difference is?

Pete Rizzo: What?

Peter McCormack: I think a Bitcoin has a bitcoiner and a Bitcoin maximalist; and a person maybe is a bitcoiner isn't thinking about every single decision they ever make to be good for Bitcoin, they've got other shit going on.

Pete Rizzo: Right, of course, yeah.

Peter McCormack: And I think that pretty much describes everyone, because I don't think anyone out there is making every decision -- I think they will virtue they are, they will signal they are, but I don't think they are.

Pete Rizzo: Right, but again I think what we're talking about here is, just to maybe level up this conversation here, is that within the industry, one of the things we're currently trying to argue against, and that Bitcoin maximalism is currently opposing, is this idea that you can do a certain set of things in a way that benefits Bitcoin, and then you can do a set of things in a way that doesn't benefit Bitcoin; and the financial incentive for you to do those things in a way that does not benefit Bitcoin is oftentimes higher.

Peter McCormack: Okay so for example, if I go for a run, whereas I could have been writing an educational piece for people to learn about Bitcoin, does that make me not a --

Pete Rizzo: No, I would say if you start a business, or you start a protocol, or you start anything that would potentially be connected to Bitcoin and further the network in such a way, but then you build this as another company or a cryptocurrency protocol, or something like that, you're quite simply choosing to do something in a way that does not align with Bitcoin.  So Bitcoin maximalism exists to oppose that.  That is essentially what it is an opposition to.

Peter McCormack: One of the interesting things is, you're almost ascribing a set of rules without actually defining the rules.  What are the things; give me an example of that?

Pete Rizzo: An example of what?

Peter McCormack: Well, what are the things that you could be doing which, originally you were this Bitcoin maximalist, you're doing all your bitcoiny things, then suddenly you do something else that doesn't align with Bitcoin that means you're not a bitcoiner anymore?

Pete Rizzo: No, it just means that in that specific instance, what you did was not in Bitcoin's best interests, and that should be okay.

Peter McCormack: Well, what counts in the list?  Like I say, going for a run instead of writing an educational piece, you're saying that's fine.  But going for a coffee --

Pete Rizzo: No, I'm not, all I'm saying is we make those choices every day.  Again, I think this conversation is about -- I think you're missing the point that I'm trying to make, is that we're called complex human beings interacting with the world in complex ways, and then some of the things that we're doing are good for Bitcoin.  In aggregate, again, if you were thought to be someone who's trying to advance Bitcoin in some way, you should aspire to be doing the most things possible that are aligned with Bitcoin, otherwise you're just a regular person who owns Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Or you've just got other shit going on, you're a bit busy, sometimes you can't do everything that somebody else does.  But this is where I think the problem is, is I think it becomes so opaque, and then the opaqueness becomes an attack surface for attacking somebody else, "Well, you're not a good enough bitcoiner, because you didn't do… but I did", and it's just this pathetic infighting with a group of people, who agree on 90% of things.

Pete Rizzo: No, we're trying to talk about what's good for Bitcoin.  So, that's one way to look at it, if you want to take that sort of view on it.  I look at it as, we're trying to have a conversation about what is good for Bitcoin, and then if you have a platform, if you own a business, you're a venture capitalist, you're a media person in the space, you're a journalist who's generally interested; then if you have a platform, are you doing things with that platform that is aligned with Bitcoin?

So this is why, again, I think you're saying -- there are a couple of levels here.  I think using the word "bitcoiner", I'm just saying, "Yeah, sure, there's a whole class of people who just own Bitcoin and they go along with their lives.  They don't have to deal with any of this stuff".

Peter McCormack: There's a whole class of people who own Bitcoin who do a lot of stuff for Bitcoin who wouldn't make it in the maximalist bracket.

Pete Rizzo: I just generally disagree with that, because I think that those people are oftentimes -- and again, this is when you look at the people who are just agnostic about cryptocurrencies, they're often doing things for their own financial benefit or to make businesses for their own financial benefit, or to create a company that delivers a product or service for a group of people.

Peter McCormack: All right, let me give you another example.  I had Seth For Privacy on this show and we talked about Monero.  Is that bad for Bitcoin?

Pete Rizzo: I mean, again, that depends on what the context was.  Usually the context around Monero is a talk about privacy, what privacy features are available on Bitcoin and then which privacy features are available elsewhere, and how we can potentially bring those back to Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, that was exactly the kind of conversation it was.  But you get comments on YouTube, "This is now What Shitcoin Did, why have you got a shitcoiner on here?"  So, that group of people have put me in a different camp, they've said, "You're not a Bitcoin maximalist".

Pete Rizzo: Well again, it comes down to what's the intent of the expression and what are we talking about.  And again, this is one of the big tension points around Bitcoin maximalism right now, is that there's a series of things that are technically not possible on the Bitcoin blockchain that occur elsewhere within the space.  They're possible because other people have either launched cryptocurrencies, or they have businesses that offer those services.

So then the question is, "To what extent are we, as a group of people, aspiring to bring those things to Bitcoin?"  To me, the people who are Bitcoin maximalists, that is what they're doing.  They're aspiring to bring -- again, Bitcoin is money, it's disrupting all money, all these things are occurring within the windowpane of us talking about money, finance and financial services.  So then the question is, "Okay, well how far does this revolution go?  How far are we willing to take it, and what are we willing to do?"

A Bitcoin maximalist, I think, takes the position that they want to further that to the greatest extent possible, and that is moral and correct and the right thing to do; because oftentimes, the people who don't do that -- so the question you look at is, if you're a developer, why would you work on Bitcoin?  You could quite simply be paid more to not work on Bitcoin by working on any of the other cryptocurrencies that launch, any of the other projects in the space that will pay more money.  So, why do that?  There has to be a reason, and a Bitcoin maximalist exists to provide that reason, because it says that it is moral and just and good to extend the Bitcoin protocol.

Peter McCormack: So, say if I'm travelling with work, I end up in Palestine, somebody turns round to me and says, "We've got terrible inflation here, the money's no good, what shall I use?"  Someone would say, and certain people I know will say, "The moral, just and best thing you can do is tell them to get Bitcoin".

Pete Rizzo: And unfortunately in those instances, they'll have to use the existing cryptocurrency exchange and stablecoin infrastructure in order to acquire that Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: I wouldn't even give that recommendation.  If somebody's living hand-to-mouth in a regime like that, I'd be saying to them, "You should get Tether, and Tether is available on these blockchains".

Pete Rizzo: Oh, that's what I just said, yeah.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, "And this is the quickest and easiest thing for you to do.  If you're living hand-to-mouth, you don't want Bitcoin, it's no good for you right now.  You need Tether, because you do not need price volatility --"

Pete Rizzo: Right, but a Bitcoin maximalism perspective would recognise that situation, understand that in those instances people are making the best choices for themselves, for their own life and the world, and then they would then aspire to attempt to fix the situation by returning those products and services to an environment in which those people can acquire those services without trusting the same parties.

Peter McCormack: I'm telling you, there are people who consider themselves Bitcoin maximalists who will not do that, and this is a problem; the whole thing's opaque.

Pete Rizzo: Anything that people identify as is inherently opaque!

Peter McCormack: But what I'm trying to get to on this is that there's a common goal and a common direction, there's a common goal, which is the growth of --

Pete Rizzo: No, there's not, there's two directions.

Peter McCormack: So, if there's no common goal, then there's no Bitcoin maximalism.

Pete Rizzo: Sorry, there's the common goal of aspirationally trying to advance Bitcoin as far as possible.  Then there are a couple of deviations from that.  It's one, recognising that there are some limitations to that and then trying to fix it; that's Bitcoin maximalism.  The second is recognising there are some limitations and then trying to profit off of it, or creating another adjunct service to that.

So again, it's how do you combat them?  This is why I keep going back to what I think was the main objection you said earlier, it's that Bitcoin maximalism -- if you want to talk about markets, everybody in this industry loves markets.  It is an ideology that has been adopted by the market, it is an ideology that continues to serve a useful function for the market, because it exists to oppose the financial incentives that would encourage people to build products and services elsewhere, in ways where the users of those systems have to trust people, or have a diminished experience compared to if it was on Bitcoin.

So again, example, you raised Tether.  There's Taro, which is Lightning Labs' proposal to rebuild stablecoins on Bitcoin; that is a Bitcoin maximalist proposal.  It states that there is a useful product and service elsewhere, that people who are using that service, they don't have very good risks and trade-offs compared to owning Bitcoin itself, and then aspirationally our goal is to correct that.  That is a Bitcoin maximalist thing, to follow that.  And it exists at any point in which people -- again, because what we're trying to do here is that Bitcoin, as the asset, has certain properties.  There are certain properties of the Bitcoin monetary system. 

I think our goal is to expand that to the greatest degree possible, and that includes encompassing successful products and financial services elsewhere, stablecoins, exchanges, Jack Dorsey right now working on centralised Bitcoin exchanges; these are all Bitcoin maximalists things that are trying to take things that exist elsewhere, that are monetising and creating value for people in the short term back to Bitcoin.  That endeavour has to be what Bitcoin maximalism is.

Peter McCormack: So, I mean that's a great definition and I can buy into that.  I don't think many people who see themselves as Bitcoin maximalists see it that way.  And I think it's fractured into a number of different behaviours and expectations of people, that go beyond that, that stretch beyond just Bitcoin; it's political police that a whole bunch have done, I don't need to bring them all up, but a whole bunch of different things, and that has been something that has, I think, fractured maximalists.  I think it has; it has fractured a group of people who really are aligned with 90% of things.

Pete Rizzo: Well then, I think the people that recognise that Bitcoin maximalism serves a goal need to reclaim the term "Bitcoin maximalism", and not reject it, because I do agree that -- you would have to agree that Bitcoin maximalism is useful.  How else would you express that you as a human being, or that you as a group, or whatever, want to maximally extend the innovation of Bitcoin to include as many financial services and things as possible.

Peter McCormack: Like I say, I completely agree with you, I absolutely do.  But we were at an event in Miami the other day, and there was a panel and they said, "What makes you a Bitcoin maximalist?" and I said, because I completely agree with you; I only hold Bitcoin, I only really care about Bitcoin, but I said, "I can't call myself one for two reasons.  Firstly, in certain scenarios, I would do certain transactions with Monero and I wouldn't do that with Bitcoin, certain things.  And also, I can't square the circle of the usefulness of dollar stablecoins in certain geographies on networks like TRON, where I don't care about the network, but I care about the individual having access to that dollar".

The reason I said that is because, even defending those, you get called a shitcoiner, a scammer.

Pete Rizzo: Well, I think this is where Bitcoin maximalism reaches a bit of an interesting limit, where it's essentially like there's a huge movement in the space also to ossify Bitcoin to the point where it wouldn't change at any point in the future.  So again, I think we, as a group of users, we have to be willing to extend Bitcoin to do these things.  So again, I can only talk and say Bitcoin maximalism has this aspiration, this aspiration to build all these products and services, rebuild them back on Bitcoin.  That's all well and good, but I think that we have to then make technology decisions collectively to further that.

There's this weird, I think, imbalance right now where if you were actually going to put out a criticism of Bitcoin maximalism, it's that essentially it both wants to aspirationally expand Bitcoin to the greatest degree possible, but then is somewhat unwilling to engage with the technical realities of whether that's possible, and to what extent we would actually take action to make that possible.  So, a good example would be then --

Peter McCormack: Drivechains, we just did Drivechains.

Pete Rizzo: Right, and I think that gets into a whole different band of theoretics that we talked about last time a little bit.  But essentially I would say then -- because, there's different conditions under that.  You don't always have to go right to the extreme of Drivechains to get where we're going.

Peter McCormack: Right, it's just we just had Paul in!

Pete Rizzo: No, I know, but I'm saying I think people misunderstand when I would say that.  So, what I would say is that if you were someone who wants Bitcoin to ossify, if you don't want Bitcoin as a technology to continue to change, for the technology to advance in that way, then at some point you're going to have to acknowledge that there are going to be limitations.  We're not going to be able to rebuild trustless financial services on top of Bitcoin in the same way.  There's going to be some limitation point. 

So then, I think it would be disingenuous for you to be a Bitcoin maximalist in that standpoint where you hold those two opposing ideas, where you are both against anything else that Bitcoin can't currently do; but then are willing or unable to support anything that would help make that change.  So, that is disingenuous, because essentially you're holding two conflicting ideas.  You're saying, "Aspirationally, everything should be built on Bitcoin and we only need Bitcoin"; but then you, as a human being, you're saying, "I, as a participant in the network; I, as someone who runs a node, would never support anything that would bring any of these things to Bitcoin".

That's a difficult position, because essentially you're doing -- "you" again, going back to the action, because I want to return it, I think, to this whole discussion with, "Are you a bitcoiner or are you a Bitcoin maximalist?" it has to start with you taking action; it has to be some action like, "What is the action that you are taking?"  Any of these things, these terms that you're throwing around, they have to be participatory, defined on some type of behaviour, otherwise they're totally meaningless.

Peter McCormack: But some of the things that people want to bring to Bitcoin are subjective, right?  Or, are you saying that anything that can be built elsewhere should be able to be built on Bitcoin, however, whatever it is?

Pete Rizzo: Well again, I think that again "everything" is a very broad term.  So, we're talking about Bitcoin, we're talking about the domain of money and financial services.  So, maybe someone who's more of a Bitcoin maximalist in the monetary sense, like Stephan Livera, he'll say, "I think that eventually, Bitcoin will continue to work and then we'll have Bitcoin banks, there'll be full reserve banks, and essentially that, to me, is the limit of what Bitcoin maximalism achieves".

I would say, as a counterpoint to that, "Okay, great, accept your definition.  Let's just say that there's other types of custodial financial services that then are rebuilt elsewhere.  If you are going to take that definition and you are going to draw some limit in the line, then you have to accept that other things will be built by people outside of that.  And then, it is disingenuous for you to oppose those things, because those things exist to serve a void and a need that you have determined that you don't want Bitcoin protocol to attempt to fulfil".  That's when I think, if you really want to get into legitimate criticisms of Bitcoin maximalism, at points it does seem disingenuous.

Peter McCormack: And it gets murky as well.  So, if you get in the area of privacy, Bitcoin privacy is handled off-chain, it's not at the protocol level, whereas something like Monero is.  And then, you can get into the debate, "Well, is privacy achievable by me on Bitcoin, as a technical moron?"  Just completely not, and that's why I don't.  That's why I've always said, since whenever, that I would use Monero.  So, that's a murky area, because it's like, "I want on-chain privacy, yet there's valid reasons not to do it".  I mean, I don't really want on-chain privacy, but do you see what I mean?  It gets a bit murky; there's a subjective solution to that problem.

Pete Rizzo: I mean again, I think privacy's a good example of this, and then the other example I would say is custodial services.  So, the classic example of this right now is CeFi versus DeFi.  So, if you look at an institution like the many that have just recently collapsed, a lot of what they're doing, the centralised custodians, is people are depositing their Bitcoin into these institutions and they're lending them out.

Then you have a class of protocols that exist outside of Bitcoin in the broader cryptocurrency space that then use different cryptocurrency assets to recreate that service.  So again, I think that Udi's been really great at making this distinction.  It's that there's this existing service that exists, it exists outside of the Bitcoin protocol; this is now being rebuilt on other protocols, and those protocols and those crypto assets exist as an alternative to the system.  And then, if you look at it, it says, "Okay, why are you encouraging one set of trade-offs versus this other set of trade-offs?" 

In both conditions, the risk is the same.  Your asset can just go to zero, because somebody's holding it, it can go to nothing.  On one side, you have to trust this institution to lend and manage their books, and we've seen that a lot of them are bad at that.  But then, on the DeFi side it's like, "Okay, you have to trust developers".  So, there's a series of trade-offs, both can be achieved, but again, like the Bitcoin position, it's that we've largely supported these custodial institutions and we have not supported these decentralised protocols that are achieving the same thing.  So, the question again, and I think this is a legitimate question is, "Why?"

Again, if you're going to accept a scenario where there are limits with what Bitcoin actually can achieve, and then you're going to accept that people are going to build products and services that then provide the service, again the privacy, you can kind of flip this example on the other side, then you have to admit that they're going to continue to exist.

Peter McCormack: But this philosophical debate is what's brilliant.  This is kind of what I want out of Bitcoin.  I want to have these discussions, these deep, philosophical discussions about what should exist; why it should exist; what is maximalism; what are the goals?  But we seem to be avoiding these.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, I think you're talking about the anti-intellectual nature of Bitcoin maximalism.

Peter McCormack: Certain cohorts, not everyone.

Pete Rizzo: Well, yeah.  I can give an intellectual defence of Bitcoin maximalism, but I think at the end result, I would also say that one of the things about Bitcoin maximalism is that it's actually very scalable, and that's something that is good; that's a good thing about it.  You can explain Bitcoin maximalism to someone who's very young.  Look at The Little HODLer.

Peter McCormack: I know.  Yeah, Little HODLer's amazing.

Pete Rizzo: Little HODLer's a great example of something where you could explain the Bitcoin world view to a 4-year-old, and that is very powerful.  It says, "The fiat system is bad, we're trying to replace it.  Bitcoin is good, and then anything else that's happening in cryptocurrency is this investment world view".  So again, Bitcoin maximalism, the world view itself, is very scalable.  I would draw criticism of saying, I think the anti-intellectual parts of Bitcoin maximalism are actually positive, because I don't know of a reality, and again this is where I think the crypto agnostic people really lose me, is not everything can be endlessly intellectualised.

One of the problems with the cryptocurrency movement beyond Bitcoin, the people who are agnostic to cryptocurrencies, it assumes this tremendous intellectualisation of what's going on.  It assumes me and you can sit and have this argument, and we can talk about centralised custodians and decentralised custodians, we can talk about the trade-offs.  The average person, they're not going to interface with that.  So now we're talking about, "What is the ideology that the whole of the cryptocurrency has produced that scales?  What is the most scalable ideology?" 

On one side, you have the nocoiners that are saying, "Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies don't exist".  I mean, clearly that is not a scalable ideology and it's a diminishing ideology, because it doesn't recognise reality, we would argue.  Then there's the cryptocurrency agnostic world view, which states that there's going to be all these types of new crypto assets, you're going to be trading them 24/7, you're going to be on Twitter at 2.00am in the night, managing your portfolio that's constantly in these assets that are being reduced, debased, split, forked, whatever; and you're going to be some sort of nouveau financial investor who's, again, constantly managing this complex portfolio of digital assets.

Then you have the Bitcoin maximalist world view that says, "Buy Bitcoin, hold Bitcoin, don't lose your keys or trust anybody with your keys, oppose the current system, participate in finance and investment responsibly".  That world view seems scalable.  Again, I don't know how to inhabit -- again, going back to action, it's like you as a human, you have to choose to live in one of these worlds.  So again, you really have to get rid of the idea that this is theoretical and it goes back to Bitcoin existing in perpetuity.  If Bitcoin exists in perpetuity, it impacts the world, it continues to exist.

So then, you have to take some action to recognise it.  You can deny it, you can become a nocoiner, which is very clear you're being financial penalised at a rate that's very clear.

Peter McCormack: Or that you don't realise.

Pete Rizzo: You can be cryptocurrency agnostic.  You can try to build things that compete, augment, live alongside Bitcoin and try to financially live that life.  I would argue that you're creating a society in which you're creating this environment where someone who is a participant, in your world view, has to be involved in a financial infrastructure at such a level where I can't imagine that the average participant will be able to do that.  I couldn't live in that world.  Look, I'm an economically coordinated person.  I wanted to buy all these stupid, dumb, shitcoin DeFi projects when they were cheap; I wanted to get the money.  I tried to live in that world. 

Then there's the Bitcoin maximalism view, which again asks the user to take very simple actions, and asks them to buy a very simple narrative.  So again, now we're getting a little bit into world view competition.  It is true that these sociologies develop, they have some relationship with technology, but then you have to look at which one of these is scalable.  Which one of them could actually the greatest number of people live in, could they actually inhabit in their daily lives?

Peter McCormack: The maximalism.

Pete Rizzo: I think Bitcoin maximalism offers the most coherent of the world views.

Peter McCormack: What about if you're a developer, and you want to build something on Bitcoin, but it can't be done; like your example earlier, because they won't do the upgrades, but you know there's a need for this tool, and you can only build it --

Pete Rizzo: Well again, that's where I think we've created these moral penalties.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but what I'm saying is, you go and build it out on this other platform, are you now not a Bitcoin maximalist; are you now a shitcoiner, because you could be accused of that?

Pete Rizzo: Well, this is where I get that thing you get --

Peter McCormack: And be cancelled.

Pete Rizzo: I mean, again, there's a ton of Bitcoin developers that have contributed to other cryptocurrency projects; you can go down the list.  Andrew Poelstra, Peter Todd, Ryan Bishop, almost all of them at some point have contributed to some alternative cryptocurrency, but it was always with this idea of experimenting with technology that we couldn't use in Bitcoin today, and then attempting to bring it back today for the greatest good.

So again, you have to then define the action.  If you are doing something for the benefit of Bitcoin, then it's just demonstrably aligned.  If your interest is to understand how Monero works, use it advantageously and bring those learnings to Bitcoin, I would argue you're still being a maximalist, because you're still trying to advance Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: And I would agree with that, and I like that.  What I don't like are these hard lines, which don't rationally think through the actions that somebody has taken; it's just this hard line.

Pete Rizzo: Well, that's why I think the whole idea of creating exclusionary groups at that level is just ridiculous.  It's like the idea that you're a bitcoiner is ridiculous.  No one should consider themselves a bitcoiner just because they own Bitcoin.  I own a lot of things and I don't consider myself an active member of that community.

Peter McCormack: I'm definitely a houser!

Pete Rizzo: I drink Smoothies occasionally --

Peter McCormack: You're a smoother!

Pete Rizzo: I'm a smoother.  We have to admit Bitcoin is part of the world, and that the world is this diverse place of many things occurring. 

Peter McCormack: This is where I think the problem has come from.  This exclusionary group has been created with this opaque set of rules, whereby you can be ejected for reasons which wouldn't --

Pete Rizzo: Don't you think that's a broader social phenomenon?  Look at the left-wing woke group, the right wing.  In America, there's the polarisation of the camps.  Again, it metastasises in talking about plastic straws.

Peter McCormack: Sure, I agree with you, but if I saw somebody ejecting somebody from their group and I felt like -- I'd be, "Look, they're still one of you, they're still helpful, they're still doing good".  I want more people to be working together against the common enemy, that's all I want; and I think at times, this opaque set of rules creates this defined group that if you cross the line, you're out.  And sometimes the problem is, it's like an elastic band; when you're out, you're pinged off.

Pete Rizzo: I mean again, as someone who exists in the space and took a lot of criticism for a lot of years, you can just take criticism and you can just go about your day.

Peter McCormack: Of course you can.

Pete Rizzo: This is a totally rational thing for you to do as a human being, and it's totally okay for you to say, "I'm a venture investor, I wanted to invest this thing.  Maybe I can be doing more to invest in Bitcoin, maybe I am not doing enough.  Maybe I could have.  I had this idea that I liked; maybe I should have thought about how that relates to Bitcoin".  Or, maybe if I think that there are some limits to Bitcoin, if I think that Bitcoin should ossify and I should be therefore allowed to invest in all these other things, there's virtue in that, maybe I should be public about that; maybe that's a viewpoint that I should evangelise for.  Maybe I should participate as an honest actor in the discussion, and then advance that if I felt that prerogative.

Peter McCormack: Do you think not being a Bitcoin maximalist is a criticism for some people?  They're like, "Oh, you're not a maxi".  Do some people see it as a criticism of that person, like you should aspire to be one and if you're not, why not?  I think you can be positive about Bitcoin, but not a Bitcoin maximalist and that's okay.

Pete Rizzo: 100%.  But I think the people who are just living their lives as people who are participating in Bitcoin, they need some guidance.  So again, you continue to go back to the world view, which is, "Okay, what is the reason that you participate in Bitcoin and then you don't participate in the array of exotic cryptocurrency, financial service products, tokens, assets?" 

Again, we've applied sort of a moral lens for that and right now, Bitcoin maximalism says that it is good and right to advance Bitcoin as much as possible, and it is good and right to oppose anything that would profit from any short-term inability of Bitcoin to be able to do something; or, any short-term profiteering by these services existing; so exist in opposition to those two things and again, I think it will continue to be around, and it will continue to be useful, unless we have a better answer for that.  Something else has to fill that void, if not Bitcoin maximalism.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  It's weird, I don't know even know, are you a Bitcoin maximalist?

Danny Knowles: I think the really interesting thing that's come of this is it's clear that there's no one definition.  I don't think you two have agreed on a definition.

Peter McCormack: No, but I like Rizzo's definition.  Now I understand it, it's because it's both a tighter definition, but also is rational around the decisions that people might make that some people reject them for.

Pete Rizzo: There's a couple of problems here.  If you create the idea that being a bitcoiner or Bitcoin maximalism is a label that someone can acquire, and if they acquire it they can never lose it, then it divorces that person from any repercussion.

Peter McCormack: No, not that, that's not what I was saying.

Pete Rizzo: Right.  Well, that's what I'm saying, there's that one example.  And then you can recast it and say, okay, this is directional and aspirational.  Your friend who's a bitcoiner, who's just holding Bitcoin, and he's not doing anything else and he's just a plumber or a nine-to-five, maybe he's a developer somewhere else, maybe he's doing the most he can for Bitcoin; then, great for him, if he's aligned with the general idea here of, we're trying to remove as much of the financial service monetary structure over to the trustless Bitcoin environment.  If that's the most he can do, the most he wants to do, then that's great also.

I think that there's -- myself, I decided to dedicate the most amount of my work and human energy to trying to understand Bitcoin, help people understand it, and then advance that cause; that's the choice that I made.  I'm not asking that everybody make that choice.

Peter McCormack: I mean, I choose to spend a significant part of my life on Bitcoin, but I also choose to do other things, because I have other interests, and that's fine.  And I'm okay with that.

Pete Rizzo: Sure.  And you want to talk to people who have controversial opinions, who have different opinions, and then challenge your audience to think differently and I agree that's something that I think you do very well.

Peter McCormack: Well I think also, that's the other thing.  Sometimes the role -- it's hard to define what a podcaster is, because it's part journalism, but it's part media, it's part entertainment; it's like a bunch of things at once.  When I'm interviewing Julian Assange's sister and brother, it's more on the journalistic side, because I'm trying to help people see the story and understand the story.  But when I'm doing, say, American HODL, it's more on the entertainment side; let's fuck around and have some jokes.

This is more on the journalistic side, but if it's on the journalistic side, am I a Bitcoin cheerleader, or am I a journalist, because sometimes they can be in conflict?  Sometimes you have to push and challenge ideas, even if they're wrong; whereas, being a Bitcoin cheerleader as a podcaster might be better for Bitcoin.

Pete Rizzo: Well I mean again, I think it goes back to, if you are a journalist, then you are someone in a position and you have a platform.  So then it's a question of, "Okay, are you taking the proper time to evaluate the reality of the situation?"  The reality of the situation is, Bitcoin exists and has existed for 13 years, and it continues to go up in value and it continues to become more broadly useful.  And the reality is that there is a cottage industry of other for-profit, centralised companies, and somewhat opaque, distributed financial services that now exist around that.

You have to have some stance on that, because it objectively exists.  So, going back to defining the phenomena, sure, these are stars in the sky, they exist.  You have to have some opinion of them, or even I don't think you're doing your job as a journalist.  And again, this is where I think that a lot of the journalism, my particular criticism over the last year is that mainstream financial journalism about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies hasn't advanced at all.

Peter McCormack: It's fucking terrible.

Pete Rizzo: The major media companies, I was talking to one that interviewed me recently, and they were talking about the state of crypto media, and I was like, "Look, you guys come in here during the bull runs, and then you equate what's going on with Dogecoin and AMC, and you do tremendous consumer harm", and there's been no consistent advancement from the major media industry.  They rotate their reporters, they don't let anybody do any good work on it. 

Again, the media industry, you've seen this tremendous failure to recognise the reality at hand, which is that Bitcoin exists, it will continue to exist, people will continue to profiteer and racketeer by creating all these companies and protocols around it.  And it's been their failure to recognise and adopt any consistent stance to that reality, beyond again equating it with the investment fanfare around AMC and Robinhood and this kind of stuff, that has done legitimate consumer harm.

Peter McCormack: Legitimate.

Pete Rizzo: Legitimate.  And again, I think there's a --

Peter McCormack: And even worse, by the way, I've literally reached out to some of these journalists and said, "Listen, I can provide you the truth and the facts that you're wrong".  And in fairness, we had the Economist allowed us to write a rebuttal and that was fair play.  The Financial Times, we got close, but they tried to edit our article too much; and then the Guardian guy just mocked us online, refused to engage with the idea that he might be wrong, he might be disseminating false information.

Pete Rizzo: Well, I think this is an area where I'm increasingly interested if you're talking about, "Okay, where are the limits of Bitcoin maximalism; and where then can we actually participate and work with the people who are outside of that bubble?"  I think one of the things that there should be an emerging commonality around is consumer harm.  Again, say what you will about any of the DeFi projects that have spun up, they're not the greater evil here.  The greater evil here is the SafeMoons and the consistent stuff that's just complete garbage, and the general cryptocurrency industry that continues to equate all these things and market them as essentially the same products.

So again, we have to remember, I think, with this bear market, "Okay, what can we achieve?"  Bitcoin maximalism is aspirational.  It's going to take us many, many years, many, many decades to realise the full potential of Bitcoin; and it's very likely that the products and services that exist outside of Bitcoin will continue to find reach and product market fit, and we'll have to then potentially try to migrate them.  But then, there's still this huge, huge problem of consumer harm, and who's addressing that?

I think the problem with it is, at the end of the day, the cryptocurrency agnostics and the Bitcoin maximalists, we don't really agree.  We have a fundamental disagreement and that disagreement allows this whole cloud of consumer harm and false marketing to continue to exist, and I'm interested to see whether anyone will come to the table on that.

Peter McCormack: One final question, but it's quite a big one.  What would you recommend, and you might not want to do this, but what would you recommend Bitcoin maximalists do with regard to the ownership of Bitcoin maximalism, and also the external critics of Bitcoin maximalism do with their criticism of it?

Pete Rizzo: What would people do if they're Bitcoin maximalists?

Peter McCormack: How do they approve Bitcoin maximalism; how does Bitcoin maximalism become more effective?

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, I think that's a good question.  I think we have to be a bit clearer about aspirationally what Bitcoin is trying to achieve, and then what we think is possible of achieving, and then just have a tighter discussion around that.  So I think that whenever we do seem to have a conversation about trying to improve Bitcoin, and this was true around OpCTV, or I think it's probably true of Drivechains now, there's this tremendous opacity around what is happening in Bitcoin development culture, and what the attitudes of what's achievable is.  And I think again, that just creates this tremendous gap of, I don't think people understand what is rational or possible and on what timeframes.

But what I would love to see is, I used to think the Scaling Bitcoin Conference series was fantastic, because I think it gave you a snapshot of the state of the art and what was happening, and I think we've lost that a bit.

Peter McCormack: Wasn't Paul saying that in the previous --

Danny Knowles: Yeah.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, we've really lost an understanding of what the current state of the art is, and what's currently being achieved, what's possible to achieve.  And again, I think that it's fine to have those conversations and then decide that we're not going to make any improvements to Bitcoin, but then I think a lot of people don't understand how to engage in those conversations at all.  It's just very hard to understand.

I think one of the reasons that Bitcoin maximalism has become such an antagonistic culture is that it's hard to participate in it in any other way.  So, if you want to become a bitcoiner, what are you given to do?  And a lot of it is social media-based, unfortunately.  But we haven't really provided a good path for those people to be productive.  And again, it takes -- I struggled for many years just being very confused about what was going on in Bitcoin and having absolutely no real conception of what was what.  And I think other than just going through the human time of actually doing their own research and trying to figure it out and developing your own intellectual stance, it doesn't work.

That's why I said, there's something to be said about the current version of Bitcoin maximalism; it's just very simplistic, it works, and we need the stuff to be scalable.  So, I think I would say (1) we need to create a more progressive environment for advancing Bitcoin and allow people to come into to that conversation and then move that forward; (2) I think we need to respect the anti-intellectual Bitcoin maximalism, because again I think the whole entirety of the world will not participate in the functioning of the Bitcoin Network, they will not participate in these conversations. 

They need some world view to adopt, and that's easy for them to do.  And it seems with the current Bitcoin maximalism worldview, again we talked about Little HODLer, you can explain it to a 4-year-old, it's highly scalable.  Bitcoin is good, the others are bad, whatever's going on in cryptocurrency is either a scam or an interesting exotic investment, whatever.  Preserve that world view, maybe we can do both those things, I don't know.

Then, people who are against Bitcoin maximalism, again I would say, "Understand what we're trying to achieve".  Because again, if you're going to continue attacking Bitcoin maximalism, but you're offering no real solution to their underlying problems, the problem that Bitcoin maximalism is trying to solve is it's trying to get people to provide their human action to furthering Bitcoin, it's trying to discourage them from building things where their financial incentives would be greater to do that elsewhere.  And as long as you continue to refuse to acknowledge that that is the aspiration, and you refuse to understand how that could potentially be accomplished in other ways -- I don't know how it could be accomplished in other ways, but I think it's important to understand that those people think that they're accomplishing something, they think that they're doing good.

I think a lot of the negativity recently has really been around trying to reject the entirety of that view.  You have to understand that this person thinks they're doing good, they think they're participating, they think they're helping.  And as long as they think they're helping, and there's a good argument that they're right, they will continue to act that way.

Peter McCormack: Are you a Bitcoin maximalist?

Pete Rizzo: I aspire to be someone who devotes the most of my time to Bitcoin and understanding it and furthering the education process around that, and I've tried to devote as much of my time to it as I can.

Peter McCormack: It's been really useful, because this is still your definition and other people have different definitions, but it's one that I like and I can get behind.

Pete Rizzo: Well again, I would say to people, I have written three articles about it, and I think you have to eventually come to terms with some -- the point right now is, right now there's been no definition and you're just coddling a bunch of stuff together.  It's just, you can argue about bad behaviour all you want, but why are people adopting these ideologies; why are they adopting these behaviours?  If you're not talking about what they're doing, what they're trying to do, then you're just not having good arguments.

Peter McCormack: No, what I was trying to get to is that I'm saying, what you've given me is like a benchmark, or a set of principles where I can understand what people are arguing over.  So, when there's a disagreement, when they're at cross purposes, I can see where they're at cross purposes now.  And I can also --

Pete Rizzo: I'll give you an example.  I think Paul Sztorc is a Bitcoin maximalist.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I agree.

Pete Rizzo: Paul Sztorc is someone, and I think anybody in the developer community will tell you, even if they don't want to do Drivechains, that they respect Paul Sztorc, because Paul Sztorc is trying to further Bitcoin as a technology.

Peter McCormack: Well, that's why we had him on the show to discuss it.

Pete Rizzo: Right.  He's trying to further Bitcoin as a technology in ways that we might not be comfortable with, that to be honest we might never do, and that would take a whole show to talk about the pros and cons and trade-offs.  But he is someone who is aspirationally aligned to our goals.  And even though he is approaching them differently in an iconoclastic way, that is aligned with Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: It helps me though with trying to have a benchmark on personal decisions.  Like with this show, I always want to help further Bitcoin, but sometimes I want to do it by, I do things maybe or have guests on that people are like, "What are you doing that?"  "Because, I want to challenge ideas". 

But I'll give you a great example recently.  We've just this, I've talked about it a couple of times, but this Jason Maier.  The guy reached out to me, he's writing a book, A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin.  And it's essentially a book dealing with leftist FUD.  He's a progressive, he's got no track record in Bitcoin, he's a teacher, but I like the idea, I think the book's needed, I think it's desperately needed.

Pete Rizzo: I would say I'm also in the same camp of thinking that there's been a tremendous amount of work done to adopt or translate Bitcoin's aspirations to the right-leaning lifestyle, and that there needs to be more work to counterbalance that.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so what happens is, I tweet about it, and some of the comments are very much like, "Leftist ideology doesn't align with Bitcoin", and just all this criticism of it.  But the thing that I think about it is that, if you are from the right, you should want this book to be created.  You should want this book created more than books that cover your own ideology, because what you have here is you have somebody who's from the left, who wants to talk to people from the left, who's basically been spoon-fed bullshit from left media, or people like Senator Warren, and they're actually going to get a book of proper, decent, good education about Bitcoin and why the energy stuff is FUD; all this bullshit.  So, you should support that.

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, if your intent of supporting Bitcoin is to advance the Republican Party, you're not a bitcoiner and you should get the fuck out.  Again, if you're here to advance the Democratic Party, the same thing, get the fuck out!

Peter McCormack: So, where's the role within politics?  Is it to have politicians cross the aisle; is that advancing Bitcoin?

Pete Rizzo: Well again, I think maybe I'll underscore that a little bit, because that was maybe a harsh statement.  So I'll say, if the reason that you're adopting Bitcoin and you're promoting Bitcoin is to further the interest of a certain party or ideology over Bitcoin, then your actions are not aligned with Bitcoin.  You're actually trying to create a political environment in which the success of Bitcoin continues to benefit one party at the expense of the other, and then entrenches Bitcoin's association with those ideologies perhaps in a way that limits its potential. 

So, maybe to underscore my tweet there; again, if your intent, and this goes to anything, and I think this is why the action thing makes sense; if your intent is to hijack Bitcoin to achieve some other goal, or to use it for some other means, you are not a Bitcoin maximalist, you are not doing something that's good for Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: I also don't mind the idea of it being an aspirational thing.  So look, like you've said, I'm working towards it, I dedicate a lot of my time to it; you weren't willing to say, "Yes, you are".  But it's an aspirational thing; I'm working towards it.

Pete Rizzo: But again, I think that people are obsessed with this idea it's some sort of fashion choice that they can become a bitcoiner and that's --

Peter McCormack: Bitcoin maximalist.  But even that's a fashion choice for some people.

Pete Rizzo: I think we're talking about a broader phenomenon in which people -- and this is why we go back to the woke left or the right, where people's social media identities are very shaped by these very political ideologies.  I would caution us grouping that into what is happening with Bitcoin, because going back to the example I used before, yes, there is a sociology around Bitcoin, but that sociology has to have some relationship to a technology.  It does not purely exist.

In the same way that, being someone who is on the woke left, that political ideology, it's a political ideology; it's relational to some form of governance, or ability of governance.  Everything's sort of relational.  So, Bitcoin is influenced by that, but it's not the same thing.  These are somewhat similar phenomena, but they are not really the same.  It's the same with the Dogecoin and GME thing; cryptocurrency investors, do they have some behavioural similarities to GameStop and AMC?  Sure, but at the end of the day, GameStop and AMC are stocks that somebody else owns on an exchange.  There's nothing new happening here.

But in Bitcoin, there is a technology that was developed that is an invention that previously did not exist.  The sociology exists in relation to the technology, which is the new thing.  And therefore, the question is, "How correct is it?"  That's the fight over Bitcoin maximalism as well.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's definitely given me a lot to think about.  It's one of these ones, I don't ever listen back to my shows, but I feel like I'm going to have to listen back to this, because there's things I just want to get back in my mind, because I think it's clear in your mind what it is, but it's not clear in a lot of other people's mind; it wasn't clear in my mind.

Pete Rizzo: I think people have just clouded the issue with an immense amount of very pointless debate.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I agree, I completely agree.

Pete Rizzo: I think I wrote the piece to say, "Look, Bitcoin maximalism exists.  It exists to serve these goals and these goals unite this group.  If your attempt is to reject it or subvert it or to argue against it, argue against this set of things; because, whatever people are talking about or tweeting about, or whatever, people tweet a ton of stupid shit about a lot of stupid stuff.  But this is the aspiration, this is the core aspiration.  If you think that we can achieve these things in some other way", this is the claim of a lot of the recent critics, "if you think that we can achieve an environment in which people will build and advance Bitcoin without enacting a moral penalty against people who are against that, then propose something, tell us what the alternative is.  What is the alternative?  Actually advance a proposal by trying to understand who you're fighting against".

Again, my point is that Bitcoin maximalists exist to solve a problem, the market has adopted the ideology because it is useful, and if your attempt is to yell at it or shout at it and make it go away, because people make you upset on Twitter, then I don't know, you're not going to get very far.

Peter McCormack: All right, man, well listen, do you want to send anyone to anywhere, the article; Twitter?

Pete Rizzo: Yeah, sure, @pete_rizzo_, Bitcoin historian on Twitter; Forbes, you can read my writing; and Bitcoin Magazine.

Peter McCormack: We will put it all in the show notes.  Thank you, man.  I think next time we hang out, we won't talk about maximalism.

Pete Rizzo: I think we'll have to flip the script; there are a lot of other subjects.

Peter McCormack: Do something else, man.  All right, dude, thank you for this, appreciate it.