Damus
Juraj profile picture
Juraj
@Juraj
There's this completely unfounded cypherpunk nostalgia (*) among some bitcoiners.

(*) Nostalgia: we had a glorious past full of ideals and now the present is corrupt, we have relaxed on the ideals, we wish we went back to the good old times

I think it's completely unfounded. We could not even imagine in our wildest dreams that we would arrive at the current moment. We had crampy slow mixmasters, command line encryption that no one used and fiat in envelopes and later centralized electronic gold custodians.

You say that there are some services that require KYC, got corrupt by VCs and compliant, not really punk. That is true, but also these corrupted services did not exist at all in the before times you are so nostalgic about.

Do we have more options or less? Definitely more. We are participating in an open decentralized project that emerged into sixth largest reserve currency in the world. And we are only beginning.

Pissed about grandmas with ETFs? Even if you remove them, we are more than 1000x of what anyone expected. We thought we are going to be fringe like the 0.001% PGP users.

We don't need everyone to be cypherpunk. Let others do what they want, we're already winning our game. Their game? Not playing, sorry, too boring.
2519❤️47🤙13🚀3🎉1👍1💯1
Jordan Gaudreau · 57w
Its similar to when people tell me Bitcoin is captured(by govt or whatever) while I'm using it totally sovereign and permissionless and just like, huh?
Boniz23⚡️🇮🇹₿ 🏴‍☠️ · 57w
Fair point. The progress is undeniable, but isn’t nostalgia also a signal? Maybe not of wanting to ‘go back,’ but of something missing in the present. More options, sure—but are we still pushing the frontier, or just optimizing what already exists? The cypherpunk ethos wasn’t just about te...
LL62 · 57w
Well said 🤠🤙
DamisOma · 57w
Grandma without ETFs here. Just taking your post to thank you cypherpunks for being who you are and doing what you do. Without you we would be lost. From the bottom of my heart: thank you! PS: Apart from the fact that it was fiat, I liked fiat in envelopes 😉
vlada · 57w
Grandmas who buy ETFs are in serious danger. Bitcoin is not like a stock, and some people just cannot fathom this. Who will explain to grandma why she owns blackcoin:tm: now? Or why she lost her coins after Coinbase got hacked. ETFs are a risk. Bitcoin is a trust machine. I would much rather see a ...
jgbtc · 57w
Celebrate both the wins and the roots.
Danny · 57w
Also one thing that deserves to be said is that by playing our own game, we may slowly introduce others to our game as well. The best way to introduce "normies" into our world is be showing them that we can thrive, be happy and be free with what we're building. We don't need to convince everyon...
Bitman · 57w
“We could not even imagine in our wildest dreams that we would arrive at the current moment.” We could, but we didn't want to. For us cypherpunks, this was more like a nightmare than a dream. We actively tried NOT to dream about this. “We had crampy slow mixmasters, command line encryption th...
dr.fred · 57w
nonsense. blabla without substance. privacy is a right. not an option. a bank account has more privacy than btc. btc has failed. no one uses it. the usage goes down even in el salvador and btc does not even perform financially. it is dead capital
Bare Sounds Project · 57w
Props to the cypherpunks for making decentralized, incorruptible money a reality. It’s wild that in 2025, anyone—rich or poor—can save and spend in money untouched by central banks and their political cronies. Sure, BTC has been embraced by governments and big business, but that was inevitable...
toxicafunk · 57w
Cipherpunks
Zen<3lofi · 57w
maybe people like to tell those types of stories, like Matrix-like stories… where you need to rebel against the corruption. I don’t think it should be too cynical, but it’s good to stay aware or next thing you know, you could somehow be part of the corruption yourself. I think corruption sta...
Danny 👾 · 57w
Cypherpunk ideals are still relevant. Bitcoin's success is because of those ideals. Don't get complacent.
UNCLE ROCKSTAR · 57w
Most of my cypherpunk nostalgia comes from the desire to have participated in those times like nostr:nprofile1qyw8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68yttjv4kxz7fwwak8vuewwdcxzcm9qythwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnxd46zuamf0ghxy6t6qqsqyredyxhqn0e4ln0mvh0v79rchpr0taeg4vcvt64te4kssx5pc0sk99k65 ... not spent as much time passively re...
Highsselhoff · 57w
Bitcoin was always too cool to be niche