Andreas Antonopoulos: Bitcoin is stronger than ever, no matter the community drama

Andreas Antonopoulos, author of Mastering Bitcoin, was recently a guest on Trace Mayer's Bitcoin Knowledge Podcast. In this episode, the two long-time Bitcoin advocates discussed the current state of Bitcoin and how far the technology has come in the past eight years. Towards the end of the discussion, Antonopoulos expressed his opinion: Bitcoin is stronger than ever, and for all the farce in the Bitcoin community, we have to ignore it.

Technology is the most important part of Bitcoin

There has been a lot of drama on social media lately regarding Bitcoin, especially regarding scaling (block size limit). Some Bitcoin enthusiasts now prefer to discuss in the /r/BTC subreddit due to disagreement with the censorship system of /r/Bitcoin. When it comes to how Bitcoin can scale in the long term, the views in the two subreddits are in stark contrast.

Many of the differences between these two factions in the Bitcoin community have become very ugly now, and Antonopoulos believes that it is best for us to return to the basics of technology .

Antonopoulos said:

“I think the most important thing is to try to look at what’s really important in Bitcoin objectively — the technology . We shouldn’t focus too much on the drama that’s irrelevant. I think there’s a lot of drama that’s interfering with the real progress of Bitcoin.”

Antonopoulos went on to point out that according to multiple indicators, Bitcoin is stronger than ever. In his opinion, Bitcoin has never been as diverse or decentralized as it is today. The author of "Mastering Bitcoin" is also impressed by the technological innovations achieved in the Bitcoin space.

Regarding the innovations made by Bitcoin, Antonopoulos believes that Bitcoin is about to usher in some new improvements. Tumblebit, Lightning Network, Segregated Witness, Mimblewimble and Rootstock are the most exciting technical achievements of the Bitcoin community.

Andreas Antonopoulos, author of "Mastering Bitcoin"

On January 5, 2017, Bitcoin's daily transaction volume hit an all-time high. Despite a recent decline, it is still nearly twice as high as at the beginning of 2016.

Some of the farces in the Bitcoin community are aimed at dividing the community

As drama has become rampant in the Bitcoin community, Antonopoulos believes that at least some of it is maliciously created. “This drama has involved a lot of people in the Bitcoin community, and I think a lot of it is created to divide the community.”

Antonopoulos went on to point out that every grassroots movement and disruptive organization in history has hidden infiltrators and provocateurs who are dedicated to causing chaos. He added:

“You’d be naive to think this is unique to the bitcoin ecosystem.”

While there is a lot of infighting within the core Bitcoin community, it’s not clear that most users are aware of it. Many end users may be more concerned with whether the Bitcoin technology works.

Antonopoulos said:

"There are still hundreds of millions of people around the world who don't have access to banking services and they don't care about who insults who or calls someone by the wrong name or anything like that."

Antonopoulos’ advice to the Bitcoin community is fairly simple: if Bitcoin is to succeed in the long term, it must continue to innovate on the technology.