Oddbean

Altcoin Redux ------------ In a way, the ordinals scam is an excellent sign. Altcoins have long been associated with Bitcoin through the moniker of "crypto" and have used Bitcoin's good name to scam people through pump and dumps. But as we've seen, this narrative is no longer what it used to be. There are enough people that have recognized the pump and dump nature of altcoins as well as Bitcoin's continued rise that there's a distinction made in the peoples' minds between Bitcoin and altcoins. One is sound money, the other is fiat 2.0. The scam of altcoins, in other words, is starting to fade and the returns aren't like they used to be. That's why ordinals and BRC-20 are becoming more popular. There's little chance of escaping the "shitcoin" moniker by releasing a token on Ethereum or Solana now. The gulf between Bitcoin and altcoins is too wide and crossing that chasm, to scam newbies has become that much harder. But by releasing a token on Bitcoin, now there's a lot more room for confusion. They can claim to be supporting Bitcoin through fees while running the same scam. It's changing names and disguises so you don't get caught. This is the snake oil salesman leaving one town to get a bunch of suckers in the next town. But this is where we need to be even more diligent. The people that are scamming are picking up the verbiage of the people that know what they're talking about. They're going to scam people by looking and sounding like the real thing. They can talk about sound money, self-sovereignty and property rights and even sound pretty convincing doing it. Except, of course, that token they want you to buy. The time to separate the Bitcoiners from the Spamcoiners is now. They are running pump and dumps, just doing it with a new rationale like a new disguise and name. And they'll fool a bunch of people. Indeed, the people they seem to attract are the very people that pumped altcoins in the past. Altcoin-land is a scorched earth they've left behind and they want to run the same policies on "top of" Bitcoin. Don't let them take over. Reject these charlatans and shame them for their chicanery. And if you're someone that's throwing up their hands and saying there's nothing to be done, you're wrong. You can do something by calling these things out for what they are. They're scams and the faster they fail, the better it will be for Bitcoin. And as we saw with altcoins in the past, ignoring them doesn't make them go away. Calling them out and relentlessly exposing their grift is what's needed.