And he seems entirely sincere about the meat of his argument. Amidst the huge diversity of blockchain ideas, he writes, the Bitcoin community’s commitment to caution and willingness to defend Bitcoin with real ferocity are particularly valuable. As he details with examples like Ethereum miners frontrunning users and development-funding tax proposals, the feature-richness of systems like Ethereum comes with inherent risks to predictability and durability. Ultimately, the big risk is that some complex feature will threaten or undermine the decentralization of a system and make it vulnerable to hostile attack. Maximalism is also a valuable defense, he argues, as more money comes into the space, incentivizing short-term returns based on “innovations” that can undermine cryptocurrency’s core premise.
