Ah, the wild west. John Wayne, The Man With No Name, Billy the Kid and Jesse James.
The frontier captures the imagination of everyone—young and old. Cowboys, outlaws, gold diggers. A land of opportunity and harsh cruelty. Unforgivable yet irresistible.
Bitcoin used to be such a frontier. The early days were filled with scams, “criminals” and underground markets. The bottom layer of the web embraced it first. It is a bazaar, full of strange, unknown characters. It thrived as a counterculture without any rules or regulations. No government can protect you from yourself. No KYC, no AML, just your name, PGP key, gribble and web of trust. Wealth is created and wealth is lost. It’s a beautiful chaos where only the authority of the Bitcoin blockchain reigns supreme. True anarchy.
Along the way, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists step in, and the lure of mass adoption invites enforcers into our space. Fast forward ten years, and the prospects for a new individual-centered world look grim. The market has been institutionalized, businesses are regulated and consumers are now “protected”. Anti-establishment has been replaced by dogma. Lured by the prospect of gold and dollars, tradition and sovereignty were traded for religion. The bold dream of a gangland economy has been shattered.
Until you start looking overseas, to the Far East, where there are new frontiers.
wild east
I don’t have an ounce of faith in a man who has no redeeming little vices. –Mark Twain
Getting on a plane to Hong Kong last week, it was fun reminiscing about my schedule to get there.
Some believe that after the famous block size war in 2017, the sun is starting to set on China’s Bitcoin empire. Some people never recovered financially from the ordeal. Of course, the ban on the blanket industry a few years later put the final nail in its coffin. Miners were exiled and exchanges were shut down. Areas that once dominated the ecosystem now recede into the shadow realm.
These dynamics have forced many market participants into some awkward situations. While Western NgU extremists were introduced to the KYC market, Chinese Bitcoin users had to rely on unregulated crypto platforms to meet their needs. Two forks will set the tone for years to come.
For better or worse, the results of this divergence were starkly demonstrated at Bitcoin Asia 2024. At least some may be scams, or disappear in ways that are indistinguishable. Most are stupid ideas. But what is clearly missing? Centralized exchange stations and traditional fiat currency operators. New Field!
Of course, the usual suspects have started throwing accusations and trying to shame everyone involved.
You have to understand that over the past decade there has been a huge effort to clean up Bitcoin. Venture capitalists and Western entrepreneurs have rolled out the red carpet to make statutory bodies feel at home here, and this pesky Chinese market makes them feel rather uncomfortable. Their ideological boundaries have been breached. These degenerate molecules are collectively crossing over and challenging common NgU tropes. Foreigners were declared nuisances because they did not conform to today’s doctrine.
They are losing the narrative game, control is disappearing, and they are scared.
Yin and Yang
What is the strictest law of our existence? grow. –Mark Twain
I, myself, choose to embrace the chaos that is emerging. At a time when the regulatory noose is tightening around our necks, the return of our prodigal brother from the East is a welcome sight. Perhaps, doctors ordered a dose of anarchy to treat the disease of compliance that had spread.
I can’t say exactly what will happen, but when I see it, I know it will change. These are unpredictable times, but the potential for a new era of technology surrounding Bitcoin is exciting. I have never seen such intense interest in Bitcoin development in this region in over a decade. I think it’s very cynical to assume that it won’t do any good.
The “Bitcoin L2” category has grown so big and so fast that most people now think it’s just a scam.
Almost all of them are scams.
But going from “no one is trying to build on top of Bitcoin” to “most new Bitcoin projects are scams” is incredible progress.
Bitcoin is back.
— Zack Voell (@zackvoell) May 13, 2024
Likewise, the willingness to leverage Bitcoin capital is unprecedented. Some may scoff at the idea, but the prospect of Bitcoin’s native financial markets has awakened a sleeping giant, and no one can put him back in the bottle. Without any sugar coating, this speculative frenzy will certainly bring lies, fraud and deceit, but Bitcoin has never been immune to it.
One thing is for sure, we are well beyond the point of no return. Bitcoin culture is as outdated as we once thought. It was a vision that was destined to fail. Too vain and too narrow-minded. The pendulum has swung too far.
Like many complex systems, Bitcoin is an exercise in balancing. Good and bad. East and West. yin and yang.
As we enter this new cycle, fighting the forces driving it seems futile, even misguided. Bitcoin hasn’t changed, and no one is trying to change it. Instead, the world around you has evolved, and the best advice is to channel that energy into something productive rather than fighting against it.
When the wind direction changes, some people build walls and man-made windmills
