1/ Bitcoin used to be a cult of independent thinkers from 2009 - 2015 or so.

bitcointalk had all sorts of interesting conversations, much more than bitcoin twitter today.

What happened? https://twitter.com/pierre_rochard/status/1304783326402748416

2/ Bitcoin (and all other crypto) protocol development consists of system engineers and mechanism designers.

System engineers are kinda like engineers at tech companies. Mechanism designers are similar to product managers.

The former writes code, the latter architects.

3/ Early on, Bitcoin was 50/50 systems engineers and mechanism designers. All kinds of ideas were discussed.

Slowly, the mechanism designers who wanted to experiment with things like smart contracts, colored coins, etc were kicked out. Vitalik may be the earliest example.

4/ Even systems engineers who didn't subscribe to the single party were kicked out (eg Gavin Andresen, Mike Hearn, Jeff Garzik, among others).

All the other developers noticed what happens when they disagree. Mechanism designers fled to ETH and other projects.

5/ Further, strategy officers and community managers promoted the single party line ensuring future bitcoiners didn't step out of line through hats, memes, etc.

All the bitcoin maximalists who joined post-2016 are all sheep with few coins (they stack sats).

PS I'm not saying @pierre_rochard is a sheep. He is the shepherd.

Nakamoto Institute has some of the best writing / thoughts on Bitcoin so far.

https://nakamotoinstitute.org/