The cryptocurrency world is no stranger to elitism. That singular feeling of social elevation and superiority has already appeared more than once among crypto evangelists in the past, and recently it appeared yet again in the form of a certain advertisement projected from Times Square, New York.
Placed by Cointelegraph, a media company, this ad beamed the term "nocoiner" and its definition ("someone who has no bitcoin") to the 330,000+ people who traipse daily through the iconic Manhattan intersection. Some figures active within the crypto community were excited to see its culture being given such prominent exposure, and they congregated to social media to voice their approval. Others, however, weren't so enthused, with the likes of Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of the Ethereum platform, arguing that such dismissive terms as "nocoiner" shouldn't be used all that proudly by the crypto community, since there are still legitimate reasons for not holding bitcoins and other tokens.
Yet what was interesting about the debate that ensued wasn't its discussion of whether 'nocoiner' is a worthwhile piece of jargon. No, it became interesting because this term served as a reminder that most of the public has yet to be convinced of the value of buying some bitcoin or ethereum, and that the crypto industry and wider community has failed to convince them of this value.
In other words, far from being a criticism of people who don't own any cryptocurrency, 'nocoiner' stands as a criticism of a community that, for a variety of reasons, isn't able to convert enough people to its cause.
'Nocoiner' = "a nice signalling mechanism"
Displayed from the end of May to the beginning of June, the ad in question displayed a number of common crypto-speak terms in addition to "nocoiner," such as "hodl", "to the moon" and "mining." It quickly gained a favourable reaction from the Twitter commentariat, with the creator and host of the Blockcrunch Podcast, Jason Choi, posting the following tweet: