Types Of Bitcoin Maximalists

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I've made no bones about what I think about Bitcoin maximalism. I find the idea of a single public blockchain having financial transactions as one use case laughable. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people in crypto who think otherwise. I find the Bitcoin maximalist point of view as being stuck in 2013 when there weren't too many cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin in existence and when those that existed were in their infancy. The space has changed a lot since then. That said, I'm not saying network effects and first mover advantage aren't crucial. But we've already seen a wave of successful projects other than Bitcoin.

From what I've observed, Bitcoin maximalists come with varying degrees of sophistication. The most sophisticated ones tend to have backgrounds in finance. Their focus is not on tech or future potential but market acceptance. You sometimes get the kind of weird blanket statements like from Cedric Dahl who said all DPoS chains are going to die when he was interviewed by @louisthomas. (By the way, I really like Louis' work, check him out.) (*)

Bitcoin maximalism also has a long tail made up of the least sophisticated people in the crypto space. These people are not necessarily newbies to crypto but almost exclusively guys who tend to be very tribal about Bitcoin. Every coin except for Bitcoin is a shitcoin in these people's vocabulary. I'd go as far as to say hearing someone use the word shitcoin is almost an indicator of them having this mindset. Finland's leading Bitcoin provider, Prasos Ltd, runs a website called bittiraha.fi. It took the longest time for the company to offer even Litecoin. The discussion forum on their site has plenty of Bitcoin maximalists of the least sophisticated kind. It seems as if a lot of people, including oldtimers simply haven't updated their views to 2019 from 2013 when alts as a whole were a novelty and met with a lot of scepticism - and rightfully so. I also agree that many of the coins on the market are questionable in terms of not having much real world use or development activity. So, I don't agree with Bitcoin maximalism and I find the position untenable in the face of facts and probable future developments.

*) By the way, I find the perspective of these finance guys valuable. It does matter a lot what the market finds acceptable. From Cedric Dahl, I learned the term value capture (I'd understood the concept but not known the term). (Interestingly, I'm utterly fascinated by the way Steem has allowed my online content creation to capture value. I've always known it must have some value and Steem probably does not capture its value accurately but that it captures any in the first place feels nothing short of miraculous. But I digress.)