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.
Continuing to wolf-cry everything you don't like as a "scam" is going to do way more harm to bitcoin, and to the larger ecosystem, than ordinals ever will.
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Ironic. I like calling out religion, personally. Biggest scam of them all.
Actually I mostly just ignore them both. The shitcoin scams as well as the “save your soul, gimme your money” scam
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217 sats \ 1 reply \ @dgy 1 Jan
Yes, unfortunately some bitcoiners fall for the "fee market" trap. Fighting the spam attack starts on the social layer.
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We also need updated spam filters. You can’t stop spam email either, but I’ll bet your inbox isn’t littered with spam. Core already has spam filters that everyone running a node already uses 🤯 Just like email spam, when the heuristics change, filters are updated.
I don't think scams are necessarily "defeatable" in the sense that they can be made to cease to exist. They will always exist in some form or another, always attacking Bitcoin or unsuspecting users. I think the question is, how do we make sure they are exposed so as few people as possible fall victim/prey to them, and also, how do we technically make our systems robust so that our systems don't topple over from scams either.
I believe we live in a time where 99.999% of everything that exists is a scam in one form or another primarily due to the influence of fiat, but also, the very nature of human beings in their desires to get ahead of others through tactical means. Many times these means come at the expense of others. I see it as a fundamental reality, like math and physics. Scams simply exist as a rule.
I agree we need to continue to expose the scammers, while also ensuring Bitcoin is robust against attacks. I haven't lost faith in the game theory that scammer attacks can be mitigated by the heavy fees and that their attempts are completely futile. They will run out of money sooner than Bitcoiners become impatient, from what I can tell. Of course, some Bitcoiners are far less patient than others. But I don't think any attacker in this case can sustain the cost of high fees forever. And in the meantime, Bitcoin gets stronger as mining becomes more attractive, giving us more security.
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"Everything's A Scam" song. No Agenda end of show mixes. About 3 minutes.
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22 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 1 Jan
They are scams.
But we have not seen the death of sh$tcoins on other chains.
Its a fad and it will pass. Lower your time preference. The more you bring attention to it, the more they get into the minds of noobs.
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Perfectly put...
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This is the way!
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Thumbs up, well said!
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Chep 1 Jan
Do you run any custom settings on your node to filter spam?
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Running Knots
The free market of fees is working fine. It will eventually exhaust spammers and it will price out any enterprise that is not sufficiently profitable to cover the costs.
And if it's indeed profitable, who the fuck are you to criticise it?
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Governments can print unlimited fiat.