Dangerous BTC Maxis

Not only do many shoot themselves in the foot, they embrace, well, people who...shoot other people

There is a growing trend of Bitcoin maximalists to be so scientology like about bitcoin that they lose all perspective. The loss of that perspective is not just pathetic to watch, its dangerous—if taken seriously. They are so long BTC that by implication and sometimes explicitly (El Salvador!) they are short democracy.

Take perpetual idiot Dan Held (was he born with the last name Held or did he change it and if so why didn’t he go full “hodl”), who has no personal principles, not to mention just being just perpetually wrong. Or the guy who tears up money on CNBC. Didn’t even bother to learn his name.

Fuck those guys. Not sure how they make their money off the hype, but, they haven’t made us any money with their “great news! Bitcoin went down today, which means its going to the moon!!” frozen takes.

Whether you are an active trader, new to the space, or never going to trade, but just interested in crypto for its theatrics, at Foot Guns, we want you to have the best outcome possible. We are not jealous people. We acknowledge there are other smart folks out there with great takes, and we will point them out. We will also point out who to stay away from. And its much more fun to shit post so lets start there.

Even your favorite publications will eventually run with something you disagree with. There are, however, certain disqualifiers, right?

You can utterly dismiss “Cointelegraph.” Here’s why (aside from the dumb name): Cointelegraph, we guess, tried to establish itself as a kind of Time Magazine, listing the most influential individuals in crypto. Time, in its most influential individuals, has to grapple with how to define “influential.” What do you do with Adolph Hitler in 1939? Certainly the most influential person of the year, but pure, unadulterated evil. He got the cover, but this was the cover, with the sub-headline: “From an unholy organist, a hymn of Hate.”

Cointelegraph, however, had nothing but good things to say about self-appointed for life, genocidal maniac Xi Jinping. He’s one of the good guys! Here’s how they portrayed him:

(source for image: Cointelegraph)

Here’s Cointelegraph fawning over the creator of concentration camps and forced labor, our clarifications are in italics:

Biography:

Xi Jinping is the incumbent (self appointed for life) president of the People’s Republic (not a Republic) of China and a major Chinese politician. Born in 1953, Xi took over as president in 2013 and is expected to remain the “president for life” after China approved the removal of its two-term limit (authoritarian states do not have term limits. See Union, Soviet for more) on the presidency in 2018. Xi is best known (for ending the autonomy and freedom of speech in Hong Kong, and rounding up ethnic minorities in camps Nazi style, not to mention implementing a total Orwellian domestic surveillance state) in the crypto community (not the one we are a part of) for his solid endorsement (they banned BTC mining) of blockchain technology and digital currency development. In October 2019, he called on the country to accelerate the adoption of blockchain as a core for innovation, triggering the propelled development of China’s national blockchain initiative and the digital yuan (yeaaaahhh ok, pay me in digital yuan, which btw even if it existed is pegged to the dollar because if they ever floated it, it would collapse. If China did make a digital yuan its widespread adoption would be because it is, you guessed it, pegged to the dollar).

Xi’s 2020:

In 2020, Xi continued to maintain his positive stance on digital currency and blockchain technology, urging the global community to cooperate in formulating international rules for digital currencies to create new competitive advantages(this doesnt even make sense). At a (the, there is only one per year you troll people) G-20 summit in November, Xi called on the members to discuss developing standards and principles for central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. The president (dictator) urged the G-20 to properly handle all types of risks and challenges while “pushing collectively for the development of the international monetary system.”

In conjunction with Xi’s growing support for blockchain technology (again, they have banned BTC like 6 times), China aggressively progressed with its CBDC and blockchain initiatives in 2020 (again, would you take a job that paid you in digital yuan). As such, China’s digital yuan (doesn’t exist) pilots had processed at least $300 million in transactions by November (source? China). In December, the Chinese government also hinted that it plans to launch cross-border CBDC transactions with Hong Kong. (with the takeover of HK by the Mainland, there is no border any more folks).

But that’s 2020. What about Cointelegraph’s 2021 take? Recycled Maxi Trash.

Cointelegraph: Xi’s 2021:

Cointelegraph expects China’s President Xi to further encourage the accelerated development of digital currency and blockchain (again the dictator banned BTC mining—our guess is more like paused it so the state can take its rip). It remains to be seen how China’s cross-border CBDC transactions will play out (almost no one takes the yuan in cross border transactions because it. is. pegged. to. the. dollar), but it will provide some solid basis for global CBDC initiatives and further development of the global financial system. A cross-border digital yuan, if realized, would also raise more questions about the U.S. dollar’s hegemony (yeah? ok. two things here. The world really has two reserve currencies. All you have to do is visit a foreign country. The euro, and the dollar. So that’s not even right. Second, what’s wrong with a hegemonic reserve currency? It provides stability to global finance; BTC Maxi’s just want it to be…what they own and hype: BTC) as the world’s reserve currency and the Chinese CBDC potentially being an economic cyberweapon(ok this New York based publication is like rooting for an economic cyberweapon!!! WTF).

It will be also interesting to observe the dynamics of the Chinese government’s relationship with private enterprise after the state halted Jack Ma’s $35 billion Ant Group (and like kidnapped him for 6 months) initial public offering in late 2020. President Xi reportedly was the main figure behind the decision to halt the IPO (so he’s a giant a-hole kleptocrat who wants to first and foremost advance the priorities of the authoritarian regime which the US State Department under two administrations has deemed genocidal).

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WHY THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY SAD (and unnecessary)

Aside from the fact that (there are exceptions, but they are rare) Bitcoin Maxi’s have formed a for profit death cult, which is sad, there is something truly wonderful happening in the Defi corner of crypto that gets less attention: democracy. DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) projects and their associated tokens have democratic, transnational governance, that is absolutely wonderful (so far). Its like watching democracy being adopted in real time without borders. In a recent governance meeting, one of our favorite projects (and its associated token SUSHI) called SUSHISWAP, delayed its governance meeting on the question on whether to take a dilutive VC investment so the folks who are involved in Asia could weigh in.

Imagine for a moment, if we governed the world that way. We have a meaningful attempt at this in the United Nations. But it has never fully lived up to its potential. We have configurations of alliances like those among the world’s democracies, and specifically in the Western alliance, NATO. Those alliances, however, are the result of unspeakable world tragedy in two world wars, and a desire to prevent a third one that would most certainly involve total destruction as it would include nukes.

Those world wars, however, might have never happened if we governed the world the way the DAOs, and in particular, SUSHI has. People have remarked that DAOs have more risk because of their approach to governing. Its messy they say. So is democracy. Not just at federal levels, but go to a meeting of your local town or city council. You will find invariably some cook who goes to every meeting and talks about the aliens lurking in the shadows.

But that cook has a voice. That’s the point. A forum where every voice can be heard. So while many BTC Maxi’s express authoritarian tendencies within the system, and by cozying up to authoritarian leaders, DAO is taking the polar opposite worldview. In the modern era, while they have been sloppy, and formed through great pain, democracy has created the most wealth. Check out this study by MIT that shows adopters of democracy have experienced GDP relative outperformance. And if you add up all the democratic nations and compare them to the dictatorships, only one (China) has any truly sizable (yes the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a lot of influence over oil, but you know what we mean) contribution to global finance, which is more a function of population size than it is a validation of its oppressive political structure.

At the end of the day, finance is just money. As a trader, you make some, you lose some, and hopefully you win more than you lose. But you should never sacrifice your core principles for a buck. At Foot Guns we are long democracy (and the freedom of speech and human rights that it protects) first and foremost, and we will never sacrifice that for money.

For anyone who disagrees, Dan Held and Cointelegraph are ready, willing, and able to monetize your greed.