Buterin vs. Bitcoin: A Clash of Ideals đŸđŸ”„

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Vitalik Buterin, with the fervor of a poet, has plunged into the age-old quarrel of Bitcoin, where the air hums with the clash of ideologies. A fiery manifesto by Gregory Maxwell, a knight of the blockchain, has ignited the debate, casting the conflict as a duel between the sanctity of freedom and the siren song of populism. “Greg Maxwell defends a principled commitment to freedom and open market-based resource allocation against the populist desire to censor the Current Hated Thing,” Buterin penned, quoting the musings of BitMEX Research, as if reciting a sonnet to the digital gods.

Buterin Takes A Stance: Supports Bitcoin Core

The spark was a missive from Maxwell, posted “Today at 06:40:27 PM” on Bitcointalk, a digital parchment where the faithful gather. He addressed the pressure on Bitcoin Core to shun disfavored transactions, arguing that the core philosophy, “going all the way back to Satoshi, AFAICT,” is a testament to a system secured by economics and self-interest. “Bitcoin is a system secured by economics and self interest,” he declared, as if invoking the spirit of a bygone era.

Maxwell’s words were sharp as a dagger, slicing through the pretensions of the “Knots” vision, which he likened to a “system secured by altruistic hope and populist theocracy-by cancel culture and paper straw bans.” A critique as biting as a winter wind, he added that such campaigns “are really popular on social media and (I expect) a big fail in the real world.”

He acknowledged the distaste for “NFT/shitcoin traffic” among Core regulars but insisted that the cost of an open system is the price of freedom. “Core’s commitment to individual freedom
 is great enough that they recognize that some wasteful or stupid traffic is the cost of an open system,” he wrote, as if debating the merits of a grand opera.

The through-line of Maxwell’s argument was a warning against yielding to “would-be censors” merely because they are “loud and obnoxious.” Instead, contributors would “route around them by using and improving Bitcoin just as they would with the weapons of any other attacker.” A strategy as cunning as a fox in a henhouse.

He emphasized that Bitcoin Core is not a vendor optimizing for customers, but a group building a network they themselves want to use: “The people who work on Bitcoin do so for themselves- to create and protect a system they want to use.” A sentiment that has left many scratching their heads, as if the very idea of a protocol being a “product” is a heresy in the digital monastery.

The “not a product for customers” line quickly became a flashpoint. “Everyone who runs Core IS a customer. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read,” a user lamented. Buterin, ever the provocateur, pushed back with a terse aesthetic defense: “No, it’s a paragraph written by someone who understands that a good protocol is a work of art.” A statement as enigmatic as a Turgenevian riddle.

Maxwell also tied today’s agitation to a broader cultural reaction against the popularity of on-chain experiments. In his post, he argued that “filter fundamentalism is a thing at all” largely because of “the popular success of NFT/shitcoin bullshit,” and offered a pointed aside about Luke Dashjr’s long-standing advocacy for what Maxwell characterizes as “personal transaction morality police.” A critique as sharp as a scalpel.

In a characteristically caustic turn, he suggests that advocacy recently “picked up a little traction” not just because of sentiment shifts but also funding dynamics, alleging “he got handed millions in charity investment after becoming an involuntary no-coiner, and now can pay people to work with him and promote his positions since few would previously do it voluntarily.” A tale as scandalous as a Russian novel.

The backdrop to all of this is the practical question of what, if anything, Bitcoin Core should do at the code level to address surges in block space demand. Maxwell’s answer is unequivocal: permissionless design and economic incentives are the defense, not discretionary filters. “It’s nothing new that there is a sizable portion of the population that understand ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’ and a sizable (and vocal!) portion that don’t understand it or don’t agree with it.” A sentiment as timeless as the hills.

At press time, Bitcoin traded at $111,567.

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2025-10-17 07:14