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What Is Maximalism In Crypto? History, Key Communities & Ecosystem Insights

 

By Reel Coverage Oct 03, 2024

 

 

Maximalism in crypto is a movement carried out by specific members and investors of select crypto projects, blockchain or community to emphasize the superiority of said projects above others in the industry. 

 

Maximalism began within the Bitcoin community following the growth and popularity of altcoins like Ethereum's ETH. Bitcoin maximalists or maxis believe that Bitcoin(BTC) is superior to all crypto assets and should be the only one that matters.

 

With billionaire investors like Michael Saylor coming into the industry, asserting himself as a maxi and buying billion dollars worth of bitcoin over the years, there's been an escalating number of acclaimed bitcoin maxis looking to leverage the new-found popularity of bitcoin amongst fiat-rich and institutional investors. 

 

Understanding Crypto Maximalism

 

The word “maximalism” holds several meanings across industries. Within the art industry, maximalism is an artistic or design style that embraces boldness, excess, and complexity, a direct opposition to minimalistic art.

 

In politics, which holds close “meaning” and application to crypto's maximalism, the concept revolves around a stance or ideology that advocates for pursuing the most extreme or uncompromising goals, often rejecting moderation, compromise, or incremental approaches.

 

By both definitions, maximalism references “extreme movements” and evidently, non-maxis within the cryptocurrency industry acknowledge the toxicity that stems from the practice. That said, maximalism has also played closely with project marketing, as a soft-leaning approach to promoting ideas to the effects of FOMO-inclined sentiments. 

 

FOMO, an abbreviation for “fear of missing out” is one of the most sought-after reactions from crypto maximalists movements as it increases a brand's authority thereby attracting fresh investments. Notwithstanding, the concept and associated movements also contribute to misguided monetary commitments, posting a negative ROI for newly onboarded crypto investors.

 

Key Communities And Insights

 

As a sector specific practice, there are various top-hanging maximalist communities within crypto, pushing the limits with promoting their projects as superior to others. Here are top 3 key maximalist communities within crypto and their point of arguments for superiority:

 

Bitcoin: The Only Decentralized And Secure Blockchain

 

Bitcoin maximalists argue that Bitcoin is the only decentralized and secure blockchain network due to its use of proof-of-work(PoW) consensus mechanism, which functions on a vast miners network running energy intensive hardwares to solve computational problems to mine bitcoin blocks and secure the chain.

 

As the first successful decentralized blockchain and crypto asset, it has been difficult for any other ecosystem to refute these claims as evidently, Bitcoin's resilience over the years proves its value proposition.

 

That said, Bitcoin's maximalism goes beyond the belief that Bitcoin is decentralized and secure, the movement cuts deep into the idea that Bitcoin should be the only crypto asset, stemming from the belief that all other blockchains and assets, often referred to as “altcoins” are shitchains and shitcoins that are not secure but centralized.

 

Bitcoin Maxis, term all other crypto blockchains and projects scams, having a stance that building on Bitcoin is the only correct way to do things and anything else is unethical, despite the verifiable shortcomings of bitcoin which includes slow transaction settlement times, low block size limiting how many transactions can be verified per block and high trending fees that grows as on-chain activities grows. 

 

Ethereum: The Only Smart Chain For Building DApps

 

Ever heard the phrase “smart contracts?” Well, that's what Ethereum brought about that Bitcoin lacked, and still lacks.

Ethereum, a formally proof-of-work blockchain that transitioned into a Proof-of-Stake(PoS)-powered blockchain, enables the development of various consumer-serving applications or services directly on blockchain-tech via smart contracts written in Solidity, Ethereum's high-level programming language. 

 

Ethereum(ETH) Maxis believe that the programmability of Ethereum makes it the best chain, superior to others to build decentralized applications(DApps). These maximalists believe that Ethereum is the most secure and scalable blockchain for building businesses of varying sizes.

 

Leveraging Ethereum's popularity as a smart contract platform and a favored chain by venture capitalists, Ethereum's maxi moments intend to limit migration to other layer 1 blockchains with smart contracts capabilities despite Ethereum's lingering threat to scalability including low transaction throughput and industry's highest transaction costs, which has led to the widespread developments of various layer 2 blockchains atop of Ethereum, to outsource computational loads and offer cheap alternatives for the transfer of assets across Ethereum. 

 

Solana: The Fastest And Most Scalable Blockchain

 

Transactions on Solana takes 0.4 - 0.6 secs to reach finality and the blockchain can theoretically handle 3,000 to 710,000 transactions per second(TPS), this is significantly higher than Ethereum's 12-14 seconds for transaction finality and 15 - 30 TPS.

 

Solana maxis preaches the blockchain's superiority as a smart chain for building applications that require vast scalability. Solana has attracted varying projects since inception but has mostly thrived on memecoins launches which has also been a popular talking point as memecoins, which are often considered to lack “utility”, has outperformed most altcoins with perceived utilities.

 

That said, similar to other blockchains which are without their shortcomings, Solana has been vastly reported to be deceptive with on-chain transactions/growth reports, with sources claiming that most Solana blocks are filled with bot generated transactions and trade volumes. 

 

In addition to this, the Solana blockchain has frequently halted at peak usage times, citing its inability to handle increased traffic at scale.

 

The Bottom Line: Building For The Interchain

 

The maximalist culture has proven to be a marketing ploy by key industry players to put select projects in the spotlight to attract investments despite these projects potentially not being the best fit for the market being targeted. 

 

Thankfully, there are numerous blockchain initiatives and projects building tech and development environments for the interchain, a world where various blockchain can flexibly communicate with each other, enabling businesses to move value across chains when necessary, dealing with the flaws of select networks and leveraging the value of all.