Reddit CEO Stirs Controversy With Criticism of Bitcoin Community

by Leon Pick
Reddit CEO Stirs Controversy With Criticism of Bitcoin Community

In what redditors are terming as "The CEO of Reddit Dumped All Over Bitcoin Users", reddit CEO Yishan Wong had some candid words for the users of his own platform.

On Quora (not reddit), he posted the following, actually in response to a question he received about his thoughts on Dogecoin. While defending Bitcoin's cause, he feels that the users on his forum have gone overboard:

"Without being too inflammatory, the user base for bitcoin is basically crazy libertarians who are increasingly poorly-informed about currency systems and macroeconomics. I say "increasingly" because at one time it was fairly well-informed libertarians but as the currency has become mainstream, it's attracted more poorly-informed individuals and the conversation have become more polarized and less knowledge-based, driving the well-informed and balanced people away, or at least prompting them to recede into the background."

He also doesn't believe in often-mentioned doctrine over overthrowing banks and government:

I think that the obsession in the bitcoin community with bringing down central banks, fiat currencies, and governments is misguided and generally misses the point of bitcoin, which I think is that for the first time in history, we have the technology for enabling extremely low-friction electronic Payments and certain trust-delegation mechanisms. That in and of itself is incredibly valuable. (There are also programmability features in the codebase that potentially open the door for zero-trust contracts and other intriguing possibilities, but they haven't been activated or tested yet).

He goes on to speak more favorably of the Dogecoin community: "It is basically a bunch of people happily passing around a silly toy currency and giving coins to their friends."

The majority of comments on his post speak favorably of his position. Even those that don't agree with his views on how the community should or should not behave, differing more on his assertion of Bitcoin functioning as a more efficient system.

In what redditors are terming as "The CEO of Reddit Dumped All Over Bitcoin Users", reddit CEO Yishan Wong had some candid words for the users of his own platform.

On Quora (not reddit), he posted the following, actually in response to a question he received about his thoughts on Dogecoin. While defending Bitcoin's cause, he feels that the users on his forum have gone overboard:

"Without being too inflammatory, the user base for bitcoin is basically crazy libertarians who are increasingly poorly-informed about currency systems and macroeconomics. I say "increasingly" because at one time it was fairly well-informed libertarians but as the currency has become mainstream, it's attracted more poorly-informed individuals and the conversation have become more polarized and less knowledge-based, driving the well-informed and balanced people away, or at least prompting them to recede into the background."

He also doesn't believe in often-mentioned doctrine over overthrowing banks and government:

I think that the obsession in the bitcoin community with bringing down central banks, fiat currencies, and governments is misguided and generally misses the point of bitcoin, which I think is that for the first time in history, we have the technology for enabling extremely low-friction electronic Payments and certain trust-delegation mechanisms. That in and of itself is incredibly valuable. (There are also programmability features in the codebase that potentially open the door for zero-trust contracts and other intriguing possibilities, but they haven't been activated or tested yet).

He goes on to speak more favorably of the Dogecoin community: "It is basically a bunch of people happily passing around a silly toy currency and giving coins to their friends."

The majority of comments on his post speak favorably of his position. Even those that don't agree with his views on how the community should or should not behave, differing more on his assertion of Bitcoin functioning as a more efficient system.

About the Author: Leon Pick
Leon  Pick
  • 1998 Articles
  • 5 Followers
About the Author: Leon Pick
  • 1998 Articles
  • 5 Followers

More from the Author

CryptoCurrency

!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|} !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}