From the chat:
NFTier: I’m surprised birdsi are holding up despite all the fud.ii Also Pete, I find that a lot of NFT Twitter is splitting into various camps. There are people who are Punk ‘Maxis’, Nouns/CCO ‘Maxis’ and generally a huge crowd which seems to be against any utility NFT project. I have to be honest, I’m quite baffled by this as I’ve never thought of NFTs as a zero-sum game and there is room for projects with all kinds of value propositions, or none at all. It seems there is a hidden war going on where people aim to demean projects they don’t own and that serve a different mission than their ‘Maxi’ orientation.
Pete: This is a very good observation! Maxi-ness is a function of bear markets. When the overall pie is shrinking, stagnant, or just not growing quickly enough, it doesn’t take long before the previously integrated factions start infighting. This is exactly what we see in the broader economy as well, which is why fiat politicians are so focused on perpetual economic growth, no matter the costs to the planet or human rights or what have you. As long as the pie is growing really really quickly, people from all walks of life will get along famously, no questions asked, which is why the NFT space never seemed zero-sum before early 2022ish. But as soon as the growth rate falls below some critical level (maybe 10%/month in crypto, which is obviously absurdly high by all other measures lol!) then it becomes a land war for scarce attention amongst existing market participants.iii Maximalism is also psychologically protective in a way that allows for individuals and groups to survive otherwise very boring and undramatic downturns. It might be months or years before another bull run in a given project and maximalism is the ego-defensive survival stance that allows one to make it to the other side. If “the chosen people” didn’t think they were “the chosen people” they would never survive 40 years in the desert!iv
NFTier: Yes, it was different before this bear market. Because crypto/NFTs are susceptible to cycles, some during which it’s in fact a zero-sum game, I wonder what that means for widespread adoption? Surely it will be phrased as a negative.
Pete: The danger is exactly this! Look at Bitcoin Maximalism today.v Who entering the crypto space now would possibly want to join that delusion group of meat-only-eating-lazer-eyed-SEC-fanbois?vi While belief and devotion to given cause are important for survival at times like this, it’s also important to have a sane and at least somewhat accessible onboarding process for future generations of adopters. Being excessively animousvii to outsiders can also lead to biting the hand that feeds when it comes to finding fresh recruits.
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- Moonbirds. ↩
- The market didn’t love the silver nest rewards, namely the fanny packs. But XCOPY does so fuck the market. Then again XCOPY is also British so maybe he was expecting another kind of fanny?
- Y’know?
- Ask me how I know… ↩
- I mean really, look. ↩
- I say this with love, as a decade-long Bitcoin hodler myself, and as someone compassionate to Balaji’s perspective that Bitcoin Maximalism is one of the most important and underrated ideologies on the planet right now. ↩
- Don’t ask me why the dumb fucking spell-checker thinks that “animous” isn’t a word. Doesn’t english know how to work? ↩