Last week Nic Carter, the partner at Castle Island Ventures and co-founder of Coinmetrics.io, published an interesting study that looks at the ever-changing narratives tied to Bitcoin technology. Carter and his fellow researcher Hasufly scraped up a lot of data stemming from Bitcointalk.org posts over the years that highlight some of the community-derived visions of what Bitcoin should be and how these visions have changed over time.
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The Ever-Changing Bitcoin Narratives
If you’ve been into cryptocurrencies for a long time you might have noticed the community narratives and visions for Bitcoin have changed over the years. For instance, back in the early days, Bitcoin technology was supposed to eradicate the current banking cartels and remove money from the state’s power as well. At least that’s what the early bitcoiners and cypherpunks said at the time. However, Bitcoin narratives have evolved and lots of Bitcoin proponents now want the central bank’s acceptance and think governments regulating the use of cryptocurrencies will make them a ‘legitimate’ form of tender. Moreover, some people believe Bitcoin should be a store of value much like gold, while others believe Bitcoin was meant to be a fast and cheap peer-to-peer cash system.
After researching this topic, Nic Carter published a well-documented study of the ever-changing narratives stemming from individuals and groups who like to tether their own visions to the Bitcoin protocol. Carter and his partner Hasufly used data derived from conversations taking place on the forum Bitcointalk.org over the last decade.
“Perhaps the most enduring source of conflict within the Bitcoin community derives from incompatible visions of what Bitcoin is and should become,” explains Carter’s study.
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