As some of you may know, my company PayPerQ (PPQ.AI) accepts Bitcoin along with altcoins, stables, and even credit cards. I came across this post today by Darthcoin, who regularly throws shade on Bitcoin companies that do not pass the purity test. This was my response to him. I hope we can drum up some great conversation from here!
A link to my response and his note here:
https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqsqg2y84k2e0yqz84gqgk5trlum9wcqqrjv2f49rrqve0tggrmx7ngukudka
[meta alert]Yo, I wonder something kinda meta: why are you triggered by this to a point that you publish a reply from your company account? You run a prepaid service (awesome[1]) that has since as far as my memory goes back always incentivized using LN. You're not a wallet - just like SN isn't a wallet - so why do you and your company feel so strongly about what Darth says about wallet purity? Why enter this fight? Is this a hill to die on?
You have an awesome service. I use it because you provide a really great range of LLMs that serve me in testing things out. I recommend your service to people and I also recommend them to use LN and take the 5% discount. ↩
It was not this post in particular that triggered me, but his general posts over time, as well as the general attitude of a lot of certain Bitcoin Maxis that I've had to deal with over the last two years while trying to run my business.
There are actually a class of Bitcoiners who will refuse to use my service because it's not Bitcoin only. That's fine. Everyone can make their own decisions. But the argument that I'm trying to make about that attitude is that it is suicidal and only hurts Bitcoin in the end.
Some bitcoiners are relentless in their pursuit of purity, both in terms of Bitcoin and in privacy and technology, etc. They demand that I adopt every single new Bitcoin or privacy tech under the sun, and they get so distracted by this ideological perfectionism that they lose sight of the fact that the whole point of this is to make a good product and to solve real problems for real people.
I could have spent 90% percent of my time perfecting a Bitcoin‑only, privacy-perfect approach, but then I wouldn't be able to spend any time keeping up with all the latest and greatest AI developments that roll out daily.
Why did I post it from my company handle? Well, it's the only handle that I have on Nostr. Secondly, I actually believe in these arguments, and I want my company to wear this belief on its shoulder and lead by example.
I don't see this as a case where they should be criticized for what they're doing, nor should companies like yours necessarily.
Purists are the intolerant minority that will make bitcoin-only projects viable much earlier than they otherwise would be. That yours isn't there (yet) isn't necessarily a knock. It might just be a sign of how early we are.
I would love it if one day I could move to a community where Bitcoin was the only thing that was accepted and that our little ecosystem could proliferate throughout the world. But that just hasn't materialized yet and thus it's not time for that yet. If you want to build a business that scales and becomes truly impactful, you have to cater to the existing audience of non-bitcoiners while still incentivizing Bitcoin.
As far as I'm concerned, we're rowing in the same direction.
What I want to emphasize, though, is that getting to that destination will require purity pressure. That some of us go out of our way, and pay more, to support bitcoin-only merchants, and withhold our support from those we think could be doing better, moves us towards the goal.
Like you say, the point is to incentivize bitcoin use.
Agree on all counts. Pressure Bitcoin adoption when one calculates that such pressure could result in something good for Bitcoin.
I feel that in some cases, the pressure is applied incorrectly and ends up hurting Bitcoin instead.
For example, when I wanted to make a post about PPQ in the Bitcoin Reddit, the mod refused to post because PPQ wasn't "Bitcoin only". However, when my Altcoin competitors want to post in a whole bunch of cryptocurrency reddits, they get huge encouragement and approval from those subreddits, gaining hundreds of real customers.
So I'm the good guy being "Bitcoin first" and yet it's never good enough for the some in Bitcoin community. Meanwhile, my competitors run laps around me in a marketing sense because the other communities are not as gated. Furthermore, those communities don't like the arrogance of some in the Bitcoin community and paint me that way as well, rejecting my posts in those subreddits as well.
This actually happened to me. I couldn't post in the /r/bitcoin reddit, nor could I post in the /r/cryptocurrency reddit. Hilarious self-own by Bitcoin purists.
I wonder though if the bitcoin-only moniker has much value left in it if - to ignorantly change Darth's words - the goalposts get shifted for many of these places over time.
This intolerant minority will feel abused and rightly so, because lets be honest now: they have been abused.
So as all these promises get broken there must be the logical next step of a mechanism for severe damage to those that abuse maxis. But it needs to be a precision scalpel: those that didn't make the promise need to stay out of shot.
Feeling betrayed is probably the worst feeling there is.
Exactly. There's a huge difference between fiat companies moving towards bitcoin and bitcoin companies moving towards fiat.
You defend those who choose to conceal LN wallet status and those who chooose to minimise their use of LN while constantly virtue signalling that they are BTC Maxis 'living on The Bitcoin Standard'.
they just do disguised publicity for a crap service.
They think that if I entter into a debate with them will bring more attention (from others) to their crap shit.
THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
Darth when I launched two years ago you came to my launch post and shit on it because "AI is bad" or something similar.
You can't conceive that you might be wrong sometimes.
Consistency matters.
AI is still bad.
And Darth is always right, because I speak up only when I know things,
Show us your SNs wallet history @DarthCoin and verify that you ever even buy CCs with sats- or that you never do and conversely sell CCs for sats - as you have previously admitted doing.
Consistency matters.
You claim to 'live on The Bitcoin Standard' but refuse to use LN here on Stacker News, preferring CC shitcoins because 'they always work'.
Your words and actions are demonstrably INCONSISTENT- that makes your a HYPOCRITE.
You never use sats here on Stacker News - you prefer CC shitcoins because 'they always work'.
You are promoting CC shitcoins.
You claim with zero verification to 'live on The Bitcoin Standard'.
What a virtue signalling verifiable hypocrite.
You have demonstrated many times you are incapable of reasoned debate and a good faith contest of ideas- you inevitably default to shoot the messenger trolling and concerted avoidance of any reasoned debate.
You cannot enter into a reasoned dialogue because your motives are malign and could be exposed for what they are if you ever engaged in genuine reasoned dialogue.
You live and speak in constant fear of and avoidance of the truth because you are not honest.
Aren't cowboy credits obtained by paying for them with bitcoin?
They can be but for content providers they can be exclusively obtained from zaps received.
@Darthcoin refuses to show his SNs wallet history to show whether he ever buys CCs with sats but even if he did he is still only using CCs while transacting with other people here and so is never using the LN while making or receiving payments within SNs.
This is surely a massive hypocrisy for someone who endlessly virtue signals that he is 'living on The Bitcoin Standard'.
Even if you are buying CCs with sats because you spend more than you earn then you are still absolutely minimising your use of LN and sats here on SNs.
Show us your SNs wallet history @DarthCoin and verify that you ever buy CCs with sats- or that you never do and conversely sell CCs for sats - as you have previously admitted doing.
@DarthCoin arsemilking hypocrit extraordinaire.
Hm... If he is buying CCs, he must use the lightning network.
Are poaters in a forum really "content creators"? Am i a content creator by writing this post?
If you are buying CCs with sats because you spend more than you earn then you are absolutely minimising your use of LN and sats here on SNs.
Show us your SNs wallet history @DarthCoin and verify that you ever even buy CCs with sats- or that you never do and conversely sell CCs for sats - as you have previously admitted doing.
'Am i a content creator by writing this post?
You sound like a @DarthCoin sock puppet apologist bot incapable of reasoned sequential dialogue- programmed to avoid it at any costs.
Apologist bot sock puppet? I really don't think you would be attacking me personaly in real life.
And not that you care, but what I said is actually valid engagement in "sequential dialog".
I have a little webstore where I sell posters. I've only ever accepted bitcoin. I guess that makes me bitcoin-only. However, at in-person events I have sold posters for cash when people didn't have lightning. If I had a ton of customers demanding to pay me in credit cards, I'd probably sign up to Stripe or something. If accepting USDT means you make more sales, it seems pretty clear that business-owners aren't making a bad decision by accepting USDT.
I'm in Bitcoin for the freedom. I believe freedom is best served by open markets. To me, this means people should be able to use and accept whatever form of payment they like. So at least at the level of a market, I'm in support of people using whatever the hell they want to use (even if what I want to use is bitcoin).
It sounds like PPQ offers a discount for paying with lightning. Thinking about it the other way round, it means you charge extra when people want to pay with crappier money than bitcoin. This seems like a great solution. Other moneys are not as good as bitcoin, so they carry an extra cost. I'd be interested to hear what Darth says about this.
I wonder if it is a different question when we are talking about wallet software and lightning infrastructure. Are those kind of businesses obligated in some way to refuse to do business with shitcoins?
I don't think so. The free market is the best solution here. Add whatever shitcoins you like to your wallet (it also might make it so I don't use your wallet because I don't trust all the extra stuff you have to add to support said shitcoins).
I think the only relevant question is: did you publicly promise to be a bitcoin-only poster company and then walk back on that promise? If you did, then there definitely is a problem, at least between yourself and every maxi that ever said a word about your product offering based on a lie. If you didn't then whatevs.
fair. I've never promised anything. I make posters. I sell them.
It feels a little like this: I've had people pressure me to make numbered prints. I think numbered prints are a bit of a fraud in the first place. Sure, I could promise to not print more, but if someone offers the right price, I assume all the numbered print artists will print more. The artists who decide to print more are violating their promise. But I think my stance is that they shouldn't be making stupid promises.
Bitcoin-only merchants are similar. Sure, they can say they are bitcoin only, but it feels very strange that we have a culture that encourages people to make poor business choices. (Well, I think it's poor business to refuse customers based on the money they want to use rather than just adding the cost of their shitty money to your prices for them).
Exactly!
Agreed.
I think the whole bitcoin-only thing exclusively makes sense for security products. This means wallets and especially of the hardware type. If nvk breaks the bitcoin-only promise on the next coldcard iteration that could be a gigantic red flag. For Blixt or even Phoenix to go deal in shitcoins... yeah, that be bad too. But this is because the extra surface weakens end-user security.
Everything else is just to please the maxis. If you please someone and then do a 180... especially because the only reason to do it in the first place was to ride the maxi seal of approval... then there ought to be consequences. If no consequences then maxis are weak.
Sadly, I think the biggest problem is that there aren't enough people actively using bitcoin to make most bitcoin-only business economically self sustaining.
That's why I made this post: #1441373, because I think the best path to bitcoin adoption is to focus on product first and bitcoin second.
For a financial services provider, that may force them to dabble in fiat and gasp crypto. Though, I would strongly suggest not going the crypto route. Fiat and stablecoins, maybe, but not crypto, please.
This whole topic is complex and nuanced and that is why it doesn't go well in online discussions.
I could probably make more points but I support the nuts like Darth because they help keep us honest. They aren't always right though. That's OK. I also support the pragmatists. My priority is serving my God, my family, and community over bitcoin. So I will not go to prison for it or starve for it. Bitcoin is a tool for freedom. Not the goal for me. But it is vital and I want to defend/use/support it and people that do.
"I think the biggest problem is that there aren't enough people actively using bitcoin to make any bitcoin-only business economically self sustaining"
Correct!
"I think the best path to bitcoin adoption is to focus on product first and bitcoin second."
Correct!
Here's the deal. Follow your principles. Not those of others. Be honest. Don't bullshit people (not saying you are btw). Don't get bogged down in responding to negativity even the good kind. Especially do not sink to the level of the worst attacks. I see so many people in the space lose credibility because they allowed emotion to drag them down into the mud. Its hard not to do that but as we have seen in recent bitcoin debates and drama... many of us are disappointed with many people's choices and how they behave. Regardless of their positions on a topic.
When you have character and principles you will be attacked at some point. I don't think Darth is attacking you but if there aren't people attacking you, its just a matter of time until they do.
You're doing great, just keep focused on your craft
Thank you
No rationale business that wants to survive should EVER refuse ANY form of payment (at least payments that can easily be converted to BTC). Let the free market participants use whichever money they want, and convert all that shit to Bitcoin ASAP, as you are doing...!!
Don't confuse interface with implementation. Make as much money as you can in whatever form and convert it to Bitcoin. Easy.
Wherefore darth thou?
He's drowning his sorrows after the Alby news
There's a difference between bitcoin-first / covering your bases (accepting stables and altcoins for payment from your customers) versus actively favoring or otherwise promoting adoption of shitcoins.
However, given the choice of two otherwise equivalent services, I'll patronize the bitcoin-only one. Other than choice of primary wallet, I don't think I've ever had an opportunity to make that decision before.
I was once against this business model from a "Bitcoin purity maximalist" perspective. When I called out Bitrefill for the same thing 2 years ago, you were in my replies explaining the logic behind the choices these Bitcoin businesses make, and the major reasons these Bitcoin companies are operating on a true Bitcoin standard, as you have outlined in this post.
I am 100% on board with these decisions and they make 100% logical sense to me from every angle.
Those who criticize this kind of stuff have never made their own product or ran any type of business, else they'd understand this logical perspective.
Not a comment on the whole 'ideological purity' thing.
But the tool itself, http://ppq.ai works great and is an awesome way to try out a bunch of different AI models, without needing to sign up for any accounts. Very responsive, great telegram channel. And - 5% discount for paying in lightning!
Thank you!
Even when I disagree with purists... I appreciate their conviction and consistency. It sucks when you are the target of someone's criticism but the one positive of purists / and toxic maxis is that they at least add some cost to compromising. If you run a company you are forced to make tough choices. Darth made his points. You made yours. The market will make theirs. We have to be big boys and girls about it.
I've never heard of your service. This is the first I'd heard of it so at least you are getting some brand awareness and feedback ;)
The pragmatic approach makes sense. Bitcoin wins not by excluding users, but by being the superior option they eventually choose. Offering a 5% Lightning discount is brilliant - it incentivizes Bitcoin adoption without alienating potential customers who aren't there yet.
As more businesses follow this model, the network effects compound. Today's USDT user becomes tomorrow's Lightning enthusiast once they see the speed and low fees firsthand.
So...people are using your tools and you're concerned because one guy doesn't like what you're building? People like Darth is not your audience, they're in other channel with other ideas and...more and more. My point is:
Don't waste time and energy, do your thing and keep building.
It's not one person. It's a vocal minority. But yes, 99% of the time we ignore and keep building. I still feel though that speaking about bad culture is a good thing.
@DarthCoin is a loud mouthed hypocrite with a small group of sycophantic admirers.
@DarthCoin claims to be a BTC Maxi and 'living on The Bitcoin Standard'.
But he does not attach any LN wallets to his SNs account and so never uses LN or BTC on here and cannot verify he uses sats ever anywhere.
Nobody here knows who he really is but I would not be surprised if he is a state surveillance mole sent to infiltrate and gather knowledge of LN tech, systems and the community- it is standard practice for state surveillance agencies to gather information on and understanding of any group with any views contrary to state authority...and their agents usually posture strongly to be genuine but their actions and inactions often betray them if followed closely...
Beware of loud mouthed virtue signalling 'toxic BTC Maxis' who cannot verify ever using Bitcoin and claim to hate statists...they may not be what they assert at all.
where's the downzapping, BROWSKI!?
Where is your reasoned retort to why you dont attach LN sending wallet?
Why do you now conceal your wallet status completely?
You previously only showed receiving wallet so appear to be here only to take sats and only send CC shitcoins.
I have only ever downzapped where respondents repeatedly refuse to engage in reasoned dialogue - which is always my preference.
Why do you raise this separate issue out of context and as a diversion to the OPs post and topic?
Are you just another @DarthCoin sock puppet?
Whoa, shots fired haha. I like to place nice and I appreciate his contributions to Bitcoin education over the years!
Yes he postures as an educator but what sort of BTC Maxi 'educator' calls CC inhouse tokens superior to sats and uses them exclusively instead of sats because 'they always work'?
CC tokens were only introduced by SNs as a compromise after the risk of state prosecution of grounds of money transmission was raised. Did @DarthCoin alert authorities and create that risk? We may never know.
SNs could have been a significant global platform for the daily use of LN but the threat of prosecution by state agencies forced the adoption of complex systems including CCs which has significantly reduced SNs growth.
@DarthCoin is a hypocrite who has virtue signaled a lot but does not walk the talk...thus his motives are, at best, suspect.
Do not trust- verify.
Getting bogged down in the details about L2's and Bitcoin-anchored side chains is one thing, but supporting or interacting with shitcoins is something entirely different. If you truck with shitcoins, regardless of your motivations, then you are a shitcoiner and should be treated as such. Again, I think there is grey area around stablecoins on lightning and side chains like Liquid because they are anchored to Bitcoin. A shitcoin is a very specific beast: A pre-mined casino rodeo looking for the next sucker. If you engage with that then you are culpable.
I would agree with your sentiment, except that currently the Bitcoin and especially the Lightning ecosystem are too small, and there just are not enough actual users yet.
I say this as THE person who was analyzing the payment data at the single largest crypto commerce website in the world: Bitrefill.com. I know the crypto payment landscape better than most.
You cannot build a business that scales beyond the relatively tiny ecosystem that is Bitcoin MoE users.
We will be some of the very first to adopt Stablecoins over Lightning, but there are literally zero customers on that currently. So we will be devoting our development time and resources on something that has zero customers. Prudent businesses build towards existing and capturable customers.
We're not out there pumping shitcoins. We simply accept them and cash them out as necessary to fund our operations.
Feels dirty but a guy's gotta eat I guess. I personally harshly judge any company that traffics in shitcoinery but your motivations at least seem rational. We all make our choices right.
The purity vs adoption debate is basically Bitcoin’s eternal argument.