When I first got into Bitcoin (2013) it felt like I had found my people. I moved to England and funded grad school there by exploiting arbitrage between GDP & USD Bitcoin exchange rates via p2p selling, but more than the money (which I lost when the police eventually raided my house and seized my assets) the best part was sitting down with hundreds of strangers and chatting while we waited for the transaction to confirm.
Bitcoin was rebel money.
Twelve years later and so much has changed. The most viral Bitcoin posts on Twitter these days are more likely to simp for the state than to challenge it
I don't get to decide who finds Bitcoin useful and for what purpose. I know that's part of it and that it needs to move beyond the niche community it once was to realize it's full potential. I know this is 'good for bitcoin' but it's also boring and unmotivating to me
There is still so much signal amid the noise though. Projects such as
@My First Bitcoin give me so much hope that as noisy as things have become we are also building that better world that we were dreaming of back when it was just a community of rebels.
I'll be using Nostr more and twitter less going forward. This reminds me more of what got me interested in Bitcoin in the first place all those years ago