Original Title: Faith in Capital Markets — The Essence and Core Value of Cryptocurrency
Original Author: Rhythm BlockBeats
Source: https://www.theblockbeats.info/news/60646
Reprint: Mars Finance
A year ago, I participated in a debate on Twitter Space, 'Is Bitcoin's development today based on faith or capital manipulation?' Deep down, I believe this debate should not have happened, and I fell into deep frustration for a while after the debate.
I have always believed that the core value of the cryptocurrency industry is consensus and culture, or faith. When I left my traditional job four years ago and fully devoted myself to this industry, I held this mindset. With the successes and failures in trading, my mood has fluctuated countless times, but my belief has never changed.
The year 2025 is more likely to be a disappointing year for cryptocurrency players. This year is about to pass, and we still have not been able to solve the biggest problem facing the current cryptocurrency market—narrative failure and lack of faith.
As an ordinary practitioner in the cryptocurrency industry, even though my work is very mundane, over the past four years, I have seen and thought about some things, and I have always had a vague feeling that one day I would systematically write these ideas into an article. Now is the time.
Bitcoin is a modern religion.
Christianity has Jesus, Buddhism has Gautama Buddha, Islam has Muhammad, and Bitcoin has Satoshi Nakamoto.
Christianity has the 'Bible,' Buddhism has the 'Tripitaka,' Islam has the 'Quran,' and Bitcoin has 'Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.'
If we conduct more detailed comparisons, we will find that Bitcoin has many similarities with traditional religions beyond the aforementioned aspects. For example, Bitcoin has its own doctrines (the modern financial order will eventually collapse, and Bitcoin will become the ark of Noah when the end of the modern financial order arrives), has its own religious rituals (mining and HODLing), has also fallen into fragmentation during its development, and has become a tool for governments for specific purposes after reaching a certain scale, etc.
But if we call Bitcoin a 'modern religion,' we must discuss its differences from traditional religions.
First, 'decentralization,' this term has developed in the current crypto industry and even has a hint of sarcasm, but it is undoubtedly the fundamental characteristic of the modern religion represented by Bitcoin. What I emphasize here is not the degree of decentralization of a blockchain network's operation, but whether 'the condensation of consensus is a decentralized process.'
Satoshi Nakamoto, the 'creator deity' of Bitcoin, chose 'self-exile.' He relinquished his authority, thereby creating a brand new world. Bitcoin has no symbolic center of authority and no individual or entity that actually possesses divine rights, growing and thriving in a reverse manner compared to traditional religions, from the bottom up. The Bitcoin white paper, along with the sentence in the genesis block 'The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks,' has never been altered. As long as you are interested, you can interpret them in any way you want.
Satoshi Nakamoto is the most human-like 'creator deity,' but also the least human-like, as he exhibits non-human moral standards or ideal pursuits. Satoshi possesses not only Bitcoins worth billions of dollars but also the ability to destroy this religion, like having a button that can destroy the world. Yet he just disappeared. If you think deeper, after so many years of Bitcoin’s development, Bitcoin believers continue to believe that Satoshi will forever protect the world he created, and even today, when governments around the world are starting to believe, you will find how incredible this all is.
Secondly, 'the internet,' which makes Bitcoin not rely on face-to-face preaching, war conquests, or immigration like traditional religions to attract followers. The internet not only allows Bitcoin's spread to be no longer linear and geographical like traditional religions but also gives Bitcoin the modern infectious power of meme culture to attract the younger generation.
Of course, there is also 'sacrifice and reward,' as well as 'division and expansion.' These two points are very important, as they determine that modern religion is essentially a form of 'faith capital market.'
Faith capital market.
If you are a Bitcoin believer, you don’t need to fast or engage in asceticism; you just need to run a full Bitcoin node or hold Bitcoin.
When your faith in Bitcoin is challenged, whether it’s the block size debate or the emergence of smart contract public chains like Ethereum and Solana, you don’t need to participate in a holy war; you still only need to run a full Bitcoin node or hold Bitcoin.
Whether running a full Bitcoin node or holding Bitcoin can be seen as a religious ritual of this Bitcoin religion. This religious ritual does not promise you the hope of a beautiful life or give you aspirations for a perfect afterlife, but it does provide material and spiritual dual returns to believers through price performance.
Similarly, whether it's the block size debate or the emergence of new public chains like Ethereum and Solana, various controversies ultimately lead to the constant increase in the total market value of cryptocurrencies. In cryptocurrency, the conflict of faith does not lead to physical annihilation and spiritual conquest; instead, it presents a situation completely opposite to traditional religions—traditional religions conflict to explain the world, ultimately dividing the world. The conflict in cryptocurrency, however, is like the spark of world creation, like the universe expanding infinitely after the Big Bang, becoming larger and more prosperous.
The universe is vast enough to accommodate countless Earths. The capital market is also vast enough to accommodate countless tokenized faiths.
Bitcoin is undoubtedly a specific modern religion. However, from the perspective of creating a 'faith capital market,' its significance far exceeds that of a specific modern religion, which I call 'a religion without a religion.' Bitcoin has developed to this day; it, like traditional religions, has gone through a process of secularization, specifically reflected in the religious rituals from running full Bitcoin nodes to HODLing, to the point where almost no cryptocurrency players emphasize its specific meaning, but it quietly sits at the top of the pyramid in the cryptocurrency market like a totem. Just as Christmas in today’s world is no longer a Christian religious holiday, we enjoy Christmas trees, Christmas gifts, and the atmosphere of Christmas, wearing Christmas hats on our social media avatars during 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 fundamentally based on the value of Bitcoin. But I am reluctant to define Bitcoin in that way—what is Bitcoin's core value? Digital gold? Tokenized energy? Fiat currency killer? In my view, the core value of Bitcoin is that it has established a modern form of religion, namely the faith capital market.
Secularization
Whether traditional religions or Bitcoin, secularization is a double-edged sword.
Taking Christmas as an example again, the global commercial value brought by Christmas (such as holiday retail, gifts, travel, decoration, and related consumption) has significantly exceeded the commercial value of traditional Christian institutions (such as donations from believers, church tickets, sales, and related income). According to estimates from Statista and the National Retail Federation (NRF), the total retail sales in the US for the 2024 holiday season are expected to be around $973 billion, with a forecast of breaking $1 trillion for the first time in 2025. This is just data from the US market, which accounts for about 40-50% of global Christmas consumption.
In contrast, the traditional 'commercial value' of Christianity includes donations from believers (tithes, offerings), church tickets (such as tourist churches), sales (such as books, souvenirs), and related income. According to the 'Status of Global Christianity 2024' report from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the total is approximately $1.304 trillion.
If we set aside the contributions of non-Christians to Christian-related tourist attractions and souvenirs, this $1.304 trillion still needs to be further discounted.
Secularization has transformed Christmas from a strictly religious holiday into a global cultural phenomenon, which has certainly expanded the influence of Christianity to some extent, but also diluted its religious core.
The same goes for Bitcoin and the entire faith capital market it has created. Just as many people around the world see Christmas as merely a day of joy, an increasing number of cryptocurrency market participants are also flooding in solely for speculation.
This is not about right or wrong; it is an unstoppable inevitable process. But the question we want to point out here is whether the massive speculative wave has shaken the faith of traditional Bitcoin believers, while celebrating Christmas has not shaken the faith of traditional Christians.
Secularization is similar; the joyful atmosphere of Christmas does not make Christians doubt their faith, while the speculative atmosphere of the cryptocurrency market makes cryptocurrency believers experience nihilism and frustration. The viral Twitter post 'I wasted 8 years of my life in the cryptocurrency industry' is one of the best recent proofs.
Where is the problem?
Myth
I dare not easily conclude this question. From an intuitive feeling of a cryptocurrency player, I would cautiously say that there may be some, but more likely, Bitcoin has developed too quickly, and the basic foundation of Bitcoin's faith itself is much smaller compared to traditional religions.
More importantly, the cryptocurrency industry has gone too far on the 'technological myth.' All along, whether it’s industry practitioners or speculators, they have repeatedly sought answers to one question—'What else can blockchain technology be used for?' Practitioners use this to determine their entrepreneurial direction, while speculators use it to determine their speculative targets. When everyone is chasing faster, more efficient, and more applicable blockchains, it is undoubtedly self-harm.
If the cryptocurrency industry is just a second Nasdaq, then it is just wasting money doing redundant things. Moreover, wasting money is a trivial matter; the real harm is the dilution of the substantive understanding of the 'faith capital market' and the consumption of faith itself.
Without Christianity, there would be no popular cultural Christmas. Without the capital market forged by faith, there would be no paradise for entrepreneurs and speculators. If we ignore this obvious causal relationship, we will naturally keep asking, 'What new narrative should we create to attract more people into the cryptocurrency market?'
Whether traditional religions or cryptocurrencies, they inevitably have to think about this question—'In different eras, how can we attract young people with different cultural preferences?' Bitcoin has delivered a new answer, allowing it to astonish traditional religions in less than 20 years. Now, it's the turn of Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency industry to face this challenge.
Savior
Meme coins are the saviors of the cryptocurrency industry.
First, the foundation of the faith capital market is Bitcoin, but this does not mean we need to fervently promote Bitcoin maximalism again. The most fundamental and fanatical existences in religions are often niche; whether it is the spirit of cypherpunk or the apocalyptic prophecy of the eventual collapse of traditional finance, the freshness it brings to the new generation of young people is gradually declining and comes with a high threshold for understanding.
In other words, to revive Bitcoin as a specific religion is, in fact, to underestimate Bitcoin, because what we are actually trying to revive is a 'religion without a religion,' a cognition that everyone’s faith can converge in the modern era through the internet in the cryptocurrency market, not only to reap material wealth but also to unleash endless power.
The core value of Bitcoin is 'the value that you and I both believe it has.' This may seem like a platitude, but it is actually a great decentralization of the right to interpret value. You and I can casually take a piece of paper and write 'worth one gram of gold,' but we cannot persuade anyone to accept its value without any value anchor or central authority endorsement. Starting from zero, it has crossed language, culture, geography, and other barriers, and even finally gained recognition from institutions and governments. This greatness is far underestimated by the public.
Throughout history, individual consciousness has been extremely weak and can be trampled at will, to the extent that we have underestimated the value of our thoughts as independent and living individuals. In fact, the most abundant resources in this world are consumed in wars—the wars that invade our consciousness. Political elections, advertising, public relations, and even some of the most basic common sense education consume enormous amounts of money, all just to ultimately make you and me believe whether something is good or bad.
The internet is great; it allows our ideas to communicate and collide across everything, 24/7 without pause. Cryptocurrency is great; it allows us to see very clearly what we can accomplish when we mutually know each other's ideas and reach an agreement that grows exponentially into a massive scale.
The greatness of cryptocurrency is not only underestimated but even reversed. While the technology of house construction is undoubtedly great, the core value of a house is that it allows 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 Bitcoin indeed has value and can be used as electronic cash like currency. Over the years, we have created countless so-called faster, more efficient, and more useful blockchains outside of Bitcoin, fantasizing that this would mean more living people enter this market.
It’s like we think that setting aside religion, the phenomenon of Christmas can be rapidly replicated in large numbers. We mistakenly believe that with a sword in hand, we can become the unrivaled swordsman, but in reality, we not only have no sword in hand but also no sword in our hearts.
Secondly, meme coins have never truly experienced a complete and mature bull market cycle. To this day, many people still believe that the value of meme coins is in the crazy speculation that lacks any intrinsic value. The popularity of pump.fun since last year and Trump's coin issuance have further polluted the true definition of 'attention tokens.'
What is a true meme coin? In fact, I don’t even like the term 'meme coin.' The reason for its existence is that early $DOGE and $SHIB achieved great success when people thought they were utterly useless. We always tend to look for reasons after success while ignoring the value of faith. So, fine, their success is attributed to the huge influence of that smiling dog image worldwide, so let’s call it a 'meme coin.' Fine, let’s continue to carry over internet classic meme cultural symbols like Pepe, Wojak, Joe...
Here, I have to pay tribute to Murad, who was the first to systematically explain what 'meme coins' are, proposed a quantifiable quality evaluation standard, and delivered a speech on a sufficiently large stage. His 'meme coin supercycle' theory has gained significant influence in the cryptocurrency space.
He insightfully grasped a very crucial point—meme is just syntactic sugar for faith assets; genuine faith assets must be clear like Bitcoin, allowing people to know its doctrines, understand what we are actually facing, what we need to change, and how we can influence or even change this world.
So, $SPX is good because it is very clear, clearly telling people that we want to mock traditional finance by surpassing the actual value of the S&P 500. So, $NEET is good because it is very clear, clearly telling people that the nine-to-five life is just a scam, and we want to awaken more people to break free from the slavery of work.
Just as Bitcoin believers engage in ascetic practices during price fluctuations, creating genuine faith assets is also no easy task. In this process, new religions outside of Bitcoin must not only seek to find a truly clear positioning and meaning internally, uniting and consolidating the thoughts of a large community, but also continuously expand their influence externally. This is destined to be a long process, and not every small progress will be reflected in price.
Meme coins are the saviors of the cryptocurrency industry; this is said because when everyone realizes that 'meme coins' are actually just a term that does not touch upon the essence, and 'faith assets' shine once again in the cryptocurrency market, everyone will marvel, 'Meme coins are back!' In fact, 'faith assets' are the essence of this market; I won't say they are indispensable because they exist naturally.
Conclusion
The things the world cares about change every year, every month, every day, and even every hour. We cannot expect that cryptocurrency will forever remain one of the most关注ed things in the world. If we lose faith, then this industry should die.
Greatness cannot be planned; we can never predict what will make cryptocurrency the world’s trending topic again. This is a process of suffering. Bitcoin is a sociological model, a cyber religion, a form of religion. If we forget this point, the entire cryptocurrency industry is merely a 'business' based on Bitcoin consensus. And business people never seek the continuous strengthening of consensus; they only seek perpetual income growth.
I cannot change anything, nor do I intend to change anything, but I will adhere to my beliefs, the belief in the capital market.
