Author:c00k1e; Source: X,@neet_acc

A year ago, I participated in a debate on Twitter Space, “Did Bitcoin rely on faith or capital manipulation to develop to this day?” Deep in my heart, I felt that this debate should not have happened, and I even fell into deep depression for a period of time after the debate.

I always think thatThe core values of the cryptocurrency industry are consensus and culture, or belief.This was the mindset I had when I quit my job in a traditional industry 4 years ago to devote myself full time to this industry.Along with the success and failure of transactions, my mood has gone up and down countless times, but my belief has never changed.

2025 is shaping up to be more of a disappointing year for cryptocurrency players.The year is almost over, and we still haven’t solved the biggest problem facing the cryptocurrency market right now—Narrative failure, lack of faith.

As an ordinary practitioner in the cryptocurrency industry, although my work is very ordinary, during these four years, I have seen some things and thought about some things. I always have a vague feeling that one day, I will systematically write these ideas into articles.

Now is the time.

Bitcoin is a modern religion

Christianity has Jesus, Buddhism has Sakyamuni, Islam has Muhammad, and Bitcoin has Satoshi Nakamoto.

Christianity has the “Bible”, Buddhism has the “Sutras”, Islam has the “Quran”, and Bitcoin has “Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system”.

If we want to make a more detailed comparison, we will find that Bitcoin has many similarities with traditional religions in addition to the above levels.For example, Bitcoin also has its own doctrine (the modern financial order will eventually collapse, and Bitcoin will become Noah’s Ark when the end of the modern financial order comes), has its own religious rituals (mining and HODL), has also fallen into divisions during its development, and has also become a tool for the government to use for certain purposes after it has grown to a certain scale, etc.

But if we call Bitcoin a “modern religion,” we must discuss its differences from traditional religions.

First of all, “decentralization”, this word has been developed in the current encryption industry, and even has a vague meaning of ridicule, but this is undoubtedly the most fundamental characteristic of the modern religion represented by Bitcoin.What I emphasize here is not the degree of decentralization of a blockchain network operation, but “whether the cohesion of consensus is a decentralized process.”

Bitcoin’s “Creator” Satoshi Nakamoto chose “self-exile”. He gave up his authority and created a new world.Bitcoin does not have a god who symbolizes central authority, nor does it have a central individual or entity that actually possesses divine power. It grows and thrives in a bottom-up manner in contrast to traditional religion.The Bitcoin white paper and the sentence “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” in the genesis block have never been changed.You can interpret them any way you want as long as you’re interested.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the most human-like “Creation God”, but he is also the least human, because he shows non-human moral standards, or ideal pursuits.Satoshi Nakamoto not only owned Bitcoins worth tens of billions of dollars, but also had the ability to single-handedly destroy this religion. It was like having a button that could destroy the world when pressed, but he just disappeared.If you think deeply about the development of Bitcoin for so many years, Bitcoin believers have believed that Satoshi Nakamoto will always protect the world he created. Even today, when governments of various countries have begun to believe it, you will find how incredible this is.

Secondly, the “Internet” makes Bitcoin unlike traditional religions that rely on face-to-face preaching, war conquests or immigration to attract believers.The Internet not only makes the spread of Bitcoin no longer linear and geographical like traditional religions, but also makes Bitcoin have the modern appeal of meme culture to attract a new generation of young people.

Of course, there is also “dedication and reward”, as well as “division and expansion”.These two points are very important. They determine that modern religion is essentially a “belief capital market.”

faith capital market

If you are a Bitcoin believer, you do not need to fast or do ascetic practices, you only need to run a Bitcoin full node or hold Bitcoins.

When your belief in Bitcoin is challenged, whether it is the dispute between large and small blocks, or smart contract public chains such as Ethereum and Solana, you still only need to run a Bitcoin full node or hold Bitcoin.

Whether running a Bitcoin full node or holding Bitcoin, it can be regarded as a religious ritual of the Bitcoin religion.This kind of religious ceremony does not promise you the hope of a better life, or give you a happy yearning for the next life. Instead, it actually gives believers both material and spiritual rewards through price performance.

Similarly, whether it is the dispute over large or small blocks, or the emergence of new public chains such as Ethereum and Solana, the ultimate result of various debates is the continuous increase in the total market value of cryptocurrency.In cryptocurrency, the conflict of beliefs no longer leads to physical destruction and spiritual conquest, but once again presents a completely opposite situation to traditional religions – traditional religions conflict in order to explain the world, and ultimately divide the world.The conflict of cryptocurrency is like the spark that created the world, like the universe spreading infinitely after the Big Bang, getting bigger and more prosperous.

The universe is so big that it can accommodate countless earths.The capital market is also very large and can accommodate countless tokenized beliefs.

Bitcoin is certainly a concrete modern religion.However, from the perspective of creating a “faith capital market”, its significance goes far beyond a specific modern religion. I call it “the religion of no religion.”In the development of Bitcoin to this day, it has gone through the process of secularization like traditional religions. This is specifically reflected in the fact that religious rituals have gone from running Bitcoin full nodes to HODL, and then almost no cryptocurrency players emphasize its specific meaning, but it quietly sits at the top of the pyramid of the cryptocurrency market like a totem.Just like Christmas is no longer a Christian religious holiday in today’s world. We like Christmas trees, Christmas gifts, enjoy the atmosphere of Christmas, and wear Santa hats on our social media account avatars at Christmas, but we may not be Christians.

You could say that Bitcoin is cryptocurrency because if Bitcoin collapses, the cryptocurrency market will cease to exist.The value of all cryptocurrencies is based on the value of Bitcoin.But I am not willing to define Bitcoin this way – what is the core value of Bitcoin?Digital gold?Tokenized energy?Fiat currency killer?In my opinion, the core value of Bitcoin is that it established the modern form of religion, that is, the capital market of faith.

secularization

Whether it is traditional religion or Bitcoin, secularization is a double-edged sword.

Taking Christmas as an example again, the global commercial output value brought by Christmas (such as holiday retail, gifts, tourism, decoration and related consumption) has significantly exceeded the commercial output value of traditional Christian institutions (such as church donations, church tickets, sales and related income).According to estimates from Statista and the National Retail Federation (NRF), the total holiday retail sales in the United States in 2024 will be approximately $973 billion, and is expected to exceed $1 trillion for the first time in 2025.This is only data from the US market, which accounts for approximately 40-50% of global Christmas consumption.

In contrast, Christianity’s traditional “commercial output” includes donations from believers (tithes, offerings), church tickets (such as tourist attraction churches), sales (such as books, souvenirs) and related income.According to the “State of Global Christianity 2024” report by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the cumulative total is approximately $1.304 trillion.

If we put aside the contribution of non-Christians to Christian-related tourist attractions and souvenirs, this $1.304 trillion will continue to be discounted.

Secularization has transformed Christmas from a strictly religious holiday into a global cultural phenomenon, which of course has expanded the influence of Christianity to a certain extent, but has also diluted the core of the religion.

The same goes for Bitcoin and the entire faith capital market it has created.Just as many people around the world view Christmas simply as a day of joy, more and more cryptocurrency market participants are flocking in simply for speculation.

Not only is there no right or wrong, it is an unstoppable and inevitable process.But the question we want to point out here is that celebrating Christmas has not shaken the faith of traditional Christians, but has the huge wave of speculation shaken the faith of traditional Bitcoin believers?

The same is true of secularization. The joyful atmosphere of Christmas does not make Christians have any doubts about their beliefs, but the speculative atmosphere in the cryptocurrency market makes cryptocurrency believers feel nihilistic and frustrated about their beliefs. The article “I wasted 8 years of my life in the cryptocurrency industry” that exploded on Twitter is one of the best recent proofs.

What’s the problem?

Myth

I dare not draw a conclusion easily on this issue.From the intuitive feeling of a player in the currency circle, I would say very cautiously that there may be, but it is more likely that Bitcoin is developing too fast, and the basic base of Bitcoin belief itself is much smaller than that of traditional religion itself.

What’s more,The cryptocurrency industry has gone too far on “technological myths”.For a long time, both industry practitioners and speculators have been repeatedly seeking the answer to a question – “What else can blockchain technology be used for?” Practitioners use this to determine their entrepreneurial direction, and speculators use this to determine their speculation targets.When everyone is pursuing a faster, more efficient and more practical blockchain, they are undoubtedly hurting themselves.

If the cryptocurrency industry is just a second Nasdaq, it’s just a waste of money doing the same thing.Moreover, wasting money is just a trivial matter. The dilution of the understanding of the essence of “faith capital market” and the consumption of faith itself are extremely serious harm.

Without Christianity, there would be no pop culture Christmas.Without a capital market forged by faith, there would be no paradise for entrepreneurs and speculators.If we ignore this obvious cause-and-effect relationship, we will naturally keep asking, “What new narrative are we trying to create to attract more people to the cryptocurrency market?”

Whether it is traditional religion or cryptocurrency, it is inevitable to think about this question – “In different eras, how should we attract young people with different cultural preferences?” Bitcoin handed over a new answer sheet, so it took less than 20 years to make traditional religions dumbfounded.Now, it’s Bitcoin’s turn, and the entire cryptocurrency industry’s turn, to face this conundrum.

savior

Meme coins are the saviors of the cryptocurrency industry.

First,The foundation of faith in the capital market is Bitcoin, but this does not mean that we need to return to fanatical pursuit of Bitcoin maximalism.The most fundamental and fanatical existences in religion are often niche. Whether it is the spirit of cypherpunk or the doomsday prophecy that traditional finance will eventually collapse, the novelty it can bring to the new generation of young people is gradually declining, and it itself has a high threshold for understanding.

To put it another way, to revitalize the specific religion of Bitcoin is actually to underestimate Bitcoin, because what we actually want to revitalize is an “unreligious religion”, a recognition that everyone’s beliefs can be condensed in the cryptocurrency market through the Internet in modern times, and not only can they harvest material wealth, but they can also explode with infinite power.

The core value of Bitcoin is that “you and I both think it has value.”This may seem like nonsense, but it is actually a great decentralization of value interpretation power.You and I can take a piece of paper and write “worth one gram of gold”, but we have no way to convince anyone to accept its value. Without any value anchor or central authority endorsement, starting from scratch, crossing many barriers such as language, culture, geography, etc., and even finally being recognized by institutions and governments, this greatness is far underestimated by the public.

From ancient times to the present, individual consciousness has been extremely weak and can be trampled on at will, so that we have despised the value of each of our ideas as independent and living individuals.In fact, the most resources in this world are consumed in war – a war that invades your and my consciousness.Political elections, advertising and public relations, and even some of what we consider to be the most basic common sense education, all cost a huge amount of money, just to ultimately make you and me think something is good or bad.

The Internet is great. It allows our ideas to cross everything and communicate and collide endlessly around the clock.Cryptocurrency is great because it allows us to see very concretely what we can do when we know each other’s ideas and grow exponentially at a massive scale.

The greatness of cryptocurrency is not only underestimated, but even put the cart before the horse.House-building technology is great, but the core value of a house is to enable people to live in peace.”A peer-to-peer electronic cash system” is certainly a genius idea, but its core value is that everyone recognizes that Bitcoin is indeed electronic cash that has value and can be used like currency.Over the years, we have created countless so-called faster, more efficient, and more effective blockchains in addition to Bitcoin. We imagine that this means that more living people will enter this market.

It’s like we think that, regardless of religion, a phenomenal holiday like Christmas can be replicated in large numbers and quickly.We think that if we have a sword in our hands, we can become the swordsmen who dominate the world, but in fact, not only do we have no swords in our hands, but we also have no swords in our hearts.

Secondly,Meme coins have never truly gone through a complete and mature bull market cycle..To this day, many people still believe that the value of meme coins lies in the crazy hype without any value.The popularity of pump.fun and Trump’s issuance of coins since last year have allowed “attention tokens” to pollute the true definition of meme coins.

What is a real meme coin?In fact, I don’t even like the term “meme coin”. The reason for this is because early DOGE and SHIB were so successful when people thought they were useless. We are always used to looking for reasons after success, but ignore the value of belief.So, okay, they succeeded because that picture of a smiling dog head had a huge impact around the world, so let’s call it a “meme coin.”So, okay, let us continue to carry the classic meme cultural symbols of the Internet, Pepe, Wojak, Joe…

Here, I have to pay tribute to Murad Mahmudov. He was the first person to systematically explain what a “meme coin” is, propose a set of quantifiable quality evaluation criteria, and give a speech on a large enough stage. His “meme coin super cycle” theory has gained sufficient influence in the currency circle.

He understood a very critical point – memes are just syntactic sugar for faith assets. A true faith asset must be like Bitcoin, which can clearly let people know its teachings, what we are facing, what we want to change, and how we want to influence or even change the world.

So, SPX is great, and the good thing is that it is very clear, clearly telling people that we are going to make a mockery of traditional finance by surpassing the actual value of the S&P 500.Therefore, NEET is very good. Fortunately, it is very clear and clearly tells people that the nine-to-five life is just a scam. We must wake up more people to get rid of the slavery of work.

And just like Bitcoin believers perform penance in the process of price ups and downs, it is not easy to create a true faith asset.In this process, new religions other than Bitcoin must not only look inwards to find a truly clear position and meaning, and ideas to unite and consolidate the huge community, but also continue to expand their influence outwards.This is destined to be a long process, and not every small improvement will be reflected in the price.

Meme coins are the savior of the cryptocurrency industry. I say this because when everyone realizes that “meme coins” are actually just a wrong statement that does not touch the essence, and “belief assets” shine again in the cryptocurrency market, everyone will exclaim, “meme coins are back!” In fact, “belief assets” are the essence of this market. I would not say that it is indispensable because it naturally exists.

Conclusion

What the world cares about changes every year, every month, every day, and even every hour. We can’t expect that cryptocurrency will always be one of the most watched things in the world.If we lose faith, then the industry should die too.

Greatness cannot be planned, and we all have no way of knowing why cryptocurrency will become the world’s top topic again next time. This is a penance.Bitcoin is a sociological model, a cyber religion, and a religious form.If we forget this, the entire cryptocurrency industry is nothing more than a “business” based on the Bitcoin consensus.What business people want is never the continuous strengthening of consensus, but the permanent improvement of income.

I can’t change anything, and I have no intention of changing anything, but I will stick to my faith, faith in the capital market.