"There are no individuals in the crypto markets that think about liberty, freedom, independence and all that romantic staff" .... you know all the 'individuals' to make such a sweeping judgement?
 
Compare the very new crypto space to the alternative central bank driven traditional criminal economy and its a huge step in the right direction. Of course not perfect but it will take generational change for people to stop pursuing materialism as the ultimate ideology, we've had it drilled into us for centuries at least have a little patience for people to change. 

I usually like your posts but this has a lot of bitterness for someone who alleges they are a bitcoin veteran.

Unfortunate you see it in this light. 

I've been following bitcoin for years and only recently have I actually started investing.

I've gone through the many phases of deciding what my strategy was, on one side i'm a libertarian that whole hardheadedly believes in technology as a means of freedom from government. One the other side I wana get rich and surf the world. The reality is you can't make an assumption as grand as "all people in btc are hypebeasts". 

Bitcoin and blockchain are a disruption event that hasn't been seen since the inception of the internet. Do you believe in the power of the internet or is it as the wall street wolves said in 99' "it's just a bubble". Everything is a bubble until it's not. 

Most of the crypto investors/people with interest that I've met both at home and overseas have been mostly libertarians in one way or another. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. What's true is that blockchain is here to stay and the original crypto which is essentially viewed as "the father of blockchain" probably wont go anywhere either. When you invest in bitcoin, you invest in blockchain; one way or another.

> There are no individuals in the crypto markets that think about liberty, freedom, independence and all that romantic staff.

Claiming to understand _everyone_ in the market so you can make a broad statement that there is _no one_ is a bit much for me. Have you considered some think long term and their ideals about liberty, freedom, and independence are directly driven by their understanding of long-term profit? By that, I mean those ideals and profit taking go hand in hand. The blockchain (unlike other systems) is open for scrutiny. Yes, we have a big problem with centralized exchanges which are not transparent, but I do think more and more projects are working to address that. Maybe whales will stay on the centralized exchanges and keep pushing things around, in which case that's a good argument that many _whales_ don't care about the long term benefits, but I don't know that we can easily speak for _everyone_ like you're doing here.

Yes, whales push things around, but claiming "We preach it but we don't really believe it." is speaking for quite a lot of people in the space. Maybe it's like, just your opinion, man. :)

Do you think <a href="https://falkvinge.net/2013/03/06/the-target-value-for-bitcoin-is-not-some-50-or-100-it-is-100000-to-1000000/">this post</a> was accurate in 2013? Do you think it's accurate now (why or why not)?

The nice thing is, your views are now on the blockchain. If BTC goes to $10k or more in the next few months, you can write another post saying, "Oops, I guess I was wrong about that BTC bear market call."

In other words, don’t be the sheep 😀

About this statement:
>I wrote this post yesterday before the bleeding begun but vanished from Steemit’s database for some reason.

Does Steemit have a database? The Steem blockchain is the database for Steemit. The articles may not reach the blockchain if steemit.com is under attack from hackers. 
Have you used other sites to check if your article is in the "database"?
I invite you to try Busy.org and join the test of the Busy beta. [More info on the Discord channel here](https://discordapp.com/channels/353791435750899714/353809213031710720).

I agree bitcoin is on the top of a cycle, that is certain to me. I plan on selling all my bitcoin for ether after the fork and Im sure many are planning similar strategies. I do not however believe in bitcoins demise. I believe that it can go as low 3k at the lowest but it will always have its place in the market, or at least for a very long time and certainly while crypto's go through mainstream adoption. Great post btw! I would like to hear more of your thought's ;)

I agree that the hype is way too large in some instances and causing many returns investors to join for quick returns. But if blockchain is the future, as I believe it is, in an increasingly decentralized economy, then the value of the BitCoin will continue to rise longterm. It still remains the "gateway drug" for crypto-investors as most people buy BitCoin as their first cryptocurrency before getting into the full power of the system through altcoins.

Life-long Libertarian checking in. 
Fast. Cheap. Borderless. Bail out free. Bail in free. ben shalom bernanke free. janet yellen free. goldman sachs free. anonymous. voluntary. government free. Violence free. comex manipulation free. decentralized. inflation free. eternally capped at 21,000,000. uncounterfeitable. no storage or security overhead. It is perfect in every way. Bitcoin. Use it. Live it. Love it. It is superior to fiat in every way. Get out of the dollar while you still can.
Very few people truly understand basic economics, but those who do are Bitcoiners all the way! Even I dabble in trading now and again but I know Bitcoin will be $1,000,000 each. That's just based on the US national debt alone!

I think good ALTs are going to take over too.  I been gradually buying up ALTs now.  Yet no one knows how high Bitcoin will go before it gets overtaken by Blockchain 2.0 projects.  They are superior in a respects.  Bitcoin only came first but does not mean it will finish first.  Its still smart to leave some money in Bitcoin.  Although I expect a big rotation into ALTs shortly.

The ideology of an utopia you seek doesn't exist my friend.

People gotta live, people gotta pay the bills, the ideology of a perfect world is left for people like Bill Gates who has more money then the rest of the world.  There's 1 Bill Gate out of billions of people, and buddy you and I aren't him lol. 

Tell that ideal to the guy making minimum wage, all he hears about blockchain is "potential" to make an extra buck and perhaps not all the significance behind it.  Maybe that's because he's not as technology savvy or perhaps even something more basic as the guy's gotta pay bills to fundamentally "survive".

The average man here in the US in becoming the president is non-existent, to be your local city's council you gotta be rich to began with.  Try doing the math of how much people spend to be a council man in your local city and you'll realize the American dream is only for the top earners.  The American dream remains a dream for more people then you and I would like to believe in their entire lifetime.

I noticed many of the same things a few years ago. 2013/2014 was a big eye opener for me. I thought the majority of people into crypto were into liberty and finally ridding themselves of the bankers. I realized after awhile that was only a small percentage of those into crypto. The majority were into the profit potential and I saw a lot of people lose interest when Bitcoin dropped from 1000+ to under 300.

The good news is an active minority can move things in the right direction. The people gambling aren't the ones innovating.

Thanks for the article it was a good read.