“The problem that Bitcoin maximalism is trying to solve, is it’s trying to get people to provide their human action to furthering Bitcoin and is trying to discourage them from building things where their financial incentives would be greater to do that elsewhere.”
— Pete Rizzo

Pete Rizzo is the editor of Bitcoin Magazine, and one of Bitcoin’s leading journalists. In this interview, we discuss Bitcoin maximalism in terms of how it should be defined and rationalised, the moral lens of maximalists, and maximalism’s advantages and limitations.

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Following our interview with Udi to discuss Bitcoin Maximalism, we now host another interview on the topic with Pete Rizzo. The two shows together designed to look at maximalism from alternative perspectives with this interview attempting to understand if a definition of maximalism possible or is it necessarily opaque and fluid.

Bitcoin maximalism has long been discussed and has gone through numerous evolutions. WBD first did a podcast on maximalism 4 years ago. Since then, there has been a new wave of adoption, and with that a new wave of maximalists.

Pete Rizzo outlines his definition of maximalism for the current cycle: all efforts should be focused on supporting and improving Bitcoin; investments in other cryptocurrencies should be discouraged and ignored. And the market’s best method of policing this is the imposition of moral penalties on those working against maximalism.

However, is there a contradiction within maximalism? In seeking to vehemently defend the integrity of Bitcoin, could it harm specific projects outside of Bitcoin that aim to provide unique and objectively useful utility? Or, is Bitcoin’s mission so valuable that it can not afford to be nuanced, and therefore collateral damage is unavoidable?

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This episode’s sponsors:
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WBD532 - Show Notes

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