Despite the crypto market being in a “cold winter” with rampant fraud, the crypto community has developed its own unique culture.
Would you spend $300 million on a pizza a dozen years ago? In 2010, Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz bought a pizza with 10,000 bitcoins. At today's bitcoin value, this is equivalent to nearly $300 million. But he said he has no regrets. Coincidentally, there is another person who accidentally threw away his hard drive, which is now worth nearly $400 million. For years, he has been asking the local council to search the landfill to help find the lost hard drive.
While we have heard a lot about crypto scams, it is an undisputed fact that most people in the cryptocurrency community do not have criminal tendencies. Over the years, through many bull and bear market cycles, they have gradually formed a subculture with norms, language styles, traditions and customs. All these elements define a subculture.
Let's start from an anthropology perspective and see how we think of subcultures. They share a common niche identity that is distinct from the larger social identity. They develop a unique set of norms and values, often have a specialized language, and may develop forms of resistance to mainstream cultural norms. There are other elements that define them, but you can see all of them in crypto culture, such as "Pizza Day", "HODL", "Community", "Airdrop", "Decentralization", "DAO", "CTO", etc.
There is a strong libertarian tendency in the crypto community, which is a resistance to the mainstream social system, referring to the traditional financial industry. Many followers of crypto culture do not trust the traditional centralized financial system and believe that decentralization can bring greater wealth equality to ordinary people.
Part of the reason is a utopian worldview of universal basic income and putting power back in the hands of ordinary people rather than elites. They also believe that with blockchain and cryptocurrencies, there will be more transparency and less corruption.
Another key element of a subculture is the rise of its own language, and internal social indicators such as humor that indicate a person has a deep understanding of the culture. We have seen terms like "HODL," which supposedly started when a drunk trader misspelled the word "HOLD." Now, it is defined as "hold on to your life," in other words, hold on and don't trade.
Emojis also play an important role in crypto subculture. For example, the birth of Dogecoin originated from Shiba Inu emojis. It became popular under the promotion of Elon Musk. Emojis convey complex ideas through images and texts and refine them into simpler expressions. This way of communication is also defined as meme communication, which is also the most popular way of communication in crypto.
Many subcultures have influencers and personalities, and the crypto world certainly has them, too. Many KOLs and big Vs have become initiators or participants of these cultures, but the two most famous people are probably Musk and the late John McAfee. There are others, some good and some not so good, such as Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) with an afro.
In the crypto subculture, there are usually communities formed around a specific cryptocurrency. They will constantly argue online about whose cryptocurrency is better. Most of the time the arguments are harmonious, but sometimes they lead to wars of words.
The norms, customs, and behaviors of this subculture create a sense of belonging to a social group. Shared jokes, ideals, and ways of behaving bring together different people from all over the world, giving them a sense of belonging.
It is this strong community connection through shared cultural elements that makes crypto subcultures so interesting. From the perspective of the Internet era, this is a fascinating and interesting perspective on how digital subcultures can develop across borders and cultures. As a subculture, it may be the first truly long-term, sustainable subculture we know of so far.
This subculture is very interesting and has cultural value. Although the crypto field is still full of scammers and speculation to this day, it is very unfair to negatively evaluate this subculture.
Understanding the deep nuances, social explorations, and ideas of this subculture can provide us with clues about the future of human socio-cultural systems and how they might evolve. Much of cryptocurrencies are debates about the state of capitalism and global financial and economic models that are facing increasing pressure for social reform.
Economist Yanis Varoufakis has proposed the idea of “techno-feudalism,” noting that companies like Apple and Meta treat their users like modern serfs, a system that the current crypto subculture is vehemently opposed to, and that blockchain and cryptocurrency’s vision of wealth equality and decentralization could be seen as a viable means of preventing such a system in the future.
There are some valuable ideas and visions in the crypto community subculture, and I believe they will not disappear soon, and after the cold winter and the ushers in spring, various ideas will become more formed and clear. In addition, crypto must also deal with the problems of fraud and scams before it can be more widely accepted by society.
