Nov. 24, 2021: ETH Maximalism is a Disease 🙉🦇

What Ultra Sound Money Doesn't Like to Hear

Last week, Zhu Su stirred up the hornets nest as he ragequit Ethereum.

Zhu Su 🔺 @zhusu

Yes I have abandoned Ethereum despite supporting it in the past. Yes Ethereum has abandoned its users despite supporting them in the past. The idea of sitting around jerking off watching the burn and concocting purity tests, while zero newcomers can afford the chain, is gross.

We’re sympathetic to this viewpoint. In most cases, bags pumping is a cause for celebration. In the case of Ethereum pumping, it’s cringe. Unlike most “utility tokens,” $ETH has utility. The plebs need cheap $ETH for vital life needs like aping, JPEGs, and JPEGs of people aping.

What good is free money if you have to pay for it?!?

squarishbread.Ξth (3,3) @squarishbread

Son: How did you retire, dad? Me in 10 years: It ain't like it used to be kiddo. We used to be given money to fuck around on the internet.

Watching people root for the price of ETH to shoot up feels vaguely ghoulish. Same energy as an oil tycoon strolling up to a Chevron ($CVX) station and dancing giddily because the price just hit $6/gallon. As some poor schmo struggles to pump enough fuel into his truck to get to work, the tycoon giddily asks: “When $100/gallon?!?” Big riot time.

Just as I dunked on BTC maximalists yesterday, ETH maximalism can also be toxic. Witness the heavy “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” vibe directed at Zhu.

On the whole, I consider the ETH community to be significantly more engaging and intellectually stimulating than BTC community. Yet due to ETH maximalism, I see two major areas where it causes the blinders to go on:

Reactive Tactics: Those Bitcoin maxis really said some mean things about Ethereum three years ago. Let’s adjust our entire product roadmap to dunk on them! Bitcoin has a fixed supply? Well, we’ll make ours depreciating! Ultra sound money, y’all!

Pro tip: ETH is already awesome and BTC kinda sucks. Let BTC worry about catching up with ETH, not vice versa. And a willingness to monkey with the overall supply mechanics makes it appear less reliable to observers, not ultra-sound.

Blurred Focus: So, are we still banking the unbanked and onboarding the next billion? Well, yes we still are, but it’s complicated. See, first we ghettoize them into L2 sidechains...

As engineers, ETH-heads are predisposed to over-architect a solution for everybody. In practice, trying to be all things to all people seldom works. ETH is a wonderful playground for whales, which is a great and highly lucrative place for any business to be. Stop trying to cater to everybody and just embrace the inequality.

찌 G 跻 じ ( 𝙃𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙞, 𝙎𝙚𝙣𝙥𝙖𝙞 ) @DegenSpartan

the secret Degenerate Spartan solution ™️ to effectively deal with ETH L1 fees today:

DCinvΞstor @iamDCinvestor

btw, literally the only people I’ve ever seen say things like “stop being too poor to afford L1” on Ethereum are shitposters like DegenSpartan and I wouldn’t exactly call him or them “Ethereum community” it’s a helpful gaslighting point though I guess 🤷‍♂️

Emily (Former TradFi CFA, CAIA, CA, MBA) APE 🦇🔊 @AutomataEmily

@DegenSpartan Become rich on other chains then you can afford ETH

I’m poor, yet I still recognize the value of keeping my class segregated from the rich. Rich people are more comfortable spending in an environment where they don’t have to see a poor person outside of a uniformed position. Web3 sites that require proof-of-wealth to access exclusive products and offers will be all the rage one day and you know it’s 100% correct whether or not you like it.

In this elitist vein, only the blue-bloods who can afford the princely $7 subscription fee get to read the rest of this article. No exclusive offers, but we expand on these points and wrestle with the contradictions of a self-described $CRV maximalist bashing maximalism.