I consider myself to be a huge Bitcoiner. I dropped out of business school to join Coinbase 3 years ago and have been one of the most passionate advocates of Bitcoin since. After years writing lots on the topic (see "What is Good Money") and educating companies, banks, and regulators about it, I'm more optimistic about the future of Bitcoin than ever before.

I'm also excited about many other crypto projects. Ethereum, Steem, and Filecoin are a few of the most promising and I don't view them as competitive to Bitcoin. I believe in a world where BTC is the store of value and "safe haven" digital asset, and other crypto tokens are used for various applications. This seems to be a contrarian view amongst Bitcoiners, but I believe it's the most pragmatic view. Bitcoin as currently constructed has limitations for applications beyond p2p cash. That's not at all a bad thing, its just a fact.

As the Bitcoin space has matured, it's become clear that there's 3 main types of Bitcoiners:

Mr. HODL

Mr. HODL is the guy that is holding only Bitcoin no matter what and thinks all altcoins are scams. He's seen Paycoin and countless other altcoin scams in the past and thinks that what's happened in the past is the best predictor of what's going to happen in the future. He's philosophically driven by things like immutability and decentralization and places these above all. Tone Vays and this guy who called me out on Twitter for promoting a scam (referencing Steem) are good examples of Mr. HODL.

The Technology Believer

The technology believer loves Bitcoin because of Satoshi's technological breakthrough and it's ability to bring new products and services to the world. He wants to see the technology progress, and it doesn't really matter to him how it happens. There may need to be philosophical compromises at times, and that is OK as long as the tech marches forward. I'd put myself, along with many of my former colleagues at Coinbase like Fred Ehrsam and Olaf Carson-Wee in this camp.

The Speculator

The speculator owns and champions bitcoin because he believes he's going to get rich from it. Every Bitcoiner has a little bit of this in him, but for the speculator greed is the primary motivating factor and the tech and philosophy are afterthoughts. The speculator will sell if he thinks the price is going down and will buy another crypto token if he sees a good opportunity to speculate. Barry Silbert is a good example of a speculator.

What type of Bitcoiner are you?

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