I began my acquaintance with bitcoin in 2011. In 2013 I started to read about what it stands for and what it is in its essence as a technology. In 2015 I began to dive much deeper into the rabbit hole:- economy courses (my education obviously wasn't enough), the very basics of coding, a lot (like a lot) of books. Now… now I spend roughly between 2 - 12 hours daily (!) in order to understand it. And here is what I think:
The more time I spend on the market, the more I understand that no one really understand what bitcoin is.
With constantly diving in #godknowswhat and a refussl to look the truth right in the eyes.
"Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There's nothing to relate it to." – Satoshi, July 5, 2010
Jameson Lopp:
"First step to understanding Bitcoin: admitting you don't understand Bitcoin.
Final step: realizing that "understanding" is a moving target"
Once again Loop in february 17:
"You can be any of these things...
whale investor
early adopter
C-level exec
developer
miner
... and still not understand Bitcoin."
And he is correct. Bitcoin is a mixture of philosophy, code, game theory, economy, cryptography, a paradigm of thinking, consensus, a protocol for passing information \ data and even behaviorism….
It's a hardcore mixture.
Alas, most of the players on the market are simply no even ready to read \ study the technology or the philosophy and the economy that lay behind it. They don't give … about what really is happening with it. For them, it's not even the money that is the most important aspect. All they care about is to show themselves in the best possible light.
Every day I hear words like: laws in smart contracts, jurisdiction for protocols, security tokens, stable coins… And most of those who speak about it are those who are closely tied to the category of people that I describe above. The category that doesnt care to study what people have been studiying for years (please visit this article if you are one of them - https://www.coindesk.com/the-rise-of-the-cypherpunks/).
Here is a genius phrase from Loop:
"Public permissionless consensus systems let you use them w/o trusting any one individual. However, you must trust everyone in aggregate."
It outlines the essence of the philosophy behind decentralization. Here is also a short video from Andreas on the same matter:
Consensus. Understanding. Analys. Learning. Dogmas not stigmas.
And for the “cherry” a picture from Meltom Dimirors (its at the top of the article) (at one of the conferences where I was a speaker I tried my best to convince the public that such words as “bitcoin or a blockchain expert” are nonces. Unfortunately no one grasped it)
I am interested in the thoughts of bitcoin maximalists.