May 10, 2021
Location: El
Salvador
Date: Wednesday 5th May
Company: n/a
Role: n/a
Bitcoin is an open and permissionless system that, by design, is available to anyone and everyone who wants to participate, without prejudice or bias. However, while the system is open to all, some of the participants in the system push strong narratives.
As a decentralised system with no single entity in control, these bitcoiners and their narratives have been fundamental in helping protect the network from bad actors and those looking to exploit it for personal gain.
Some of these narratives are clearly beneficial, such as running a full node to help decentralise the network or pushing self-sovereignty through things such as not your keys, not your coins. However, several other narratives have become things that some groups of bitcoiners identify with, such as following a carnivore diet, anarchism and scepticism regarding vaccines.
How important are these narratives to bitcoin? And what makes someone a 'real' bitcoiner?
In this interview, I talk to American HODL and Surfer Jim. We discuss bitcoin narratives & purity, shitcoins, NFTs, the bitcoin plebs and Surfer Jim's battle with Chamath Palihapitiya.