Motion: Toxic maximalism is great for Bitcoin (Giacomo Zucco vs. Paul Sztorc)

Guests:

Giacomo Zucco: twitter.com/giacomozucco
Paul Sztorc: twitter.com/truthcoin

Host:

Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09)

Today’s motion is “Toxic maximalism is great for bitcoin.”

I hear many no-coiners say that “the worst thing about bitcoin is the bitcoiners.” They are referring to their negative encounters with staunch bitcoin believers on social media. The criticism is that these bitcoiners are irrational, vicious and annoying, and they attack no-coiners in unison like a coordinated army. 

The essence of this behavior is captured by the term: toxic bitcoin maximalism. The idea is that bitcoin is superior to all other currencies, which include fiat, obviously, and all other cryptos; and impolite behavior online is justified in promoting bitcoin or defending its legitimacy. 

Well, obviously not all bitcoiners are like that. Today, we will have two bitcoiners facing off, on whether such behavior continues to serve bitcoin well.

If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.

If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.

Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.


Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

• Article on the Bitcoin blocksize war: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@tobixen/a-brief-history-of-the-bitcoin-block-size-war
• Book about the Bitcoin blocksize war: https://www.amazon.com/Blocksize-War-controls-Bitcoins-protocol/dp/B08YQMC2WM
• Giacomo Zucco personal website: https://giacomozucco.com/
• Paul Sztorc personal website: https://truthcoin.info
• Paul Sztorc article on Bitcoin post-maximalism: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/bitcoin-post-maximalism/
• Paul Sztorc's drive chain proposal: https://www.drivechain.info/

Guest bios:

Giacomo first heard of Bitcoin in 2012 and shortly started to mine the cryptocurrency. He quit to focus on Bitcoin full-time in 2013 and has since cofounded and supported Bitcoins startups. He is cofounder of BCademy, a website dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology education and consultation.

Paul is a self-branded independent Bitcoiner. He is perhaps best known as the proposer of Drivechain, a project that seeks to leverage sidechain technology in order to introduce additional functionality to Bitcoin. One use case of this is a zcash-like fully encrypted sidechain using Drivechain.