Beyond the Technical Narrative: Cryptocurrency is a War of Beliefs

Introduction

None of the core questions that make cryptocurrency truly interesting have been genuinely answered to this day.

“Digital gold” is not the answer for Bitcoin. It represents a form of religious faith—a religion—and is currently undergoing rigorous tests of regulation and stabilization with stablecoins (USD).

“Altcoins are worthless” is not the answer for altcoins. Altcoins have long been effectively phased out as a definition:

Meme coins are not just air; they are a form of assetization of human beliefs. They have the power to shape cultural symbols, define new aesthetics, and even reshape public thinking;

Although attention tokens experience wild swings and severe harvesting, fundamentally, they are a search engine for attention that people bet real money on;

The most popular “Autonomous Worlds” in the last cycle now clearly point to a direction—only AI can truly overcome human nature and build genuinely autonomous digital worlds. The rise of AI will inevitably drive the crypto industry in tandem. If, on this path, the circulating currency remains fiat rather than cryptocurrency, then we can just say GG;

As for project revenues, profits, the tug-of-war over equity and tokens, after so many years, treating the crypto market as a stock market has become a self-deprecating act—perhaps it’s time for that to end.

After all these years, most people’s understanding is still confined within the narrow framework of “value” as defined by VC speech. If we cannot establish a valuation standard independent of traditional stock markets and VC valuation systems, then we have not truly disrupted the capital market—at least so far, this is a complete failure.

But failure is never the end; it is part of the process. Practice is eternal failure, and eternal failure comes from eternal resistance. This is also the greatest potential of cryptocurrency, which has yet to be truly realized—its vitality always lies in challenge, disruption, and reconstruction.

The true crypto movement should be about evangelism, the tokenization of all things, and a series of cultural and value wars fought worldwide. These things will never be liked by VCs and pure speculators because they simply don’t believe in them.

This article was published at the end of December last year, but during Bitcoin’s crash and the industry’s ongoing departures and loss of confidence, we hope it can bring some reassurance to everyone.

Bitcoin as a Modern Religion

Christianity has Jesus, Buddhism has Shakyamuni, 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 compare more deeply, we find that Bitcoin shares many similarities with traditional religions beyond the above levels. For example, Bitcoin also has its own doctrines (the modern financial order will eventually collapse, and Bitcoin will serve as Noah’s Ark when the end times of the modern financial system arrive), its own rituals (mining and HODLing), and it has experienced splits during its development, eventually becoming a tool used by governments for specific purposes, and so on.

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

First, “decentralization”—a term that has developed in the current crypto industry, even with a hint of irony—undoubtedly represents the most fundamental characteristic of the modern religion that Bitcoin embodies. What I emphasize here is not the degree of decentralization of a blockchain network’s operation, but whether “the consensus formation process is decentralized.”

Satoshi Nakamoto, the “creator god” of Bitcoin, chose “self-exile.” He relinquished his authority, creating a new world. Bitcoin has no central deity symbolizing authority, nor a person or entity with divine power. It grows from the bottom up, contrary to traditional religions. The Bitcoin white paper, and the phrase in the genesis block “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks,” has never been altered. If you’re interested, you can interpret them in any way you like.

Satoshi is the most human-like “creator god,” yet also the most inhuman, because he exhibited non-human moral standards—or rather, ideals. Satoshi possesses not only Bitcoin worth billions of dollars but also the power to destroy this religion with a single action, like pressing a button that could destroy the world. Yet, he disappeared. If you think more deeply, after so many years of development, Bitcoin believers still believe that Satoshi is guarding the world he created, and even today, governments around the world are beginning to believe this. You realize how incredible this is.

Second, “the internet”—this makes Bitcoin unlike traditional religions, which rely on face-to-face evangelism, conquest through war, or immigration to attract followers. The internet not only makes Bitcoin’s dissemination non-linear and non-geographical but also enables modern cultural memes to attract the younger generation.

Of course, there are also “dedication and reward,” and “splits and expansion.” These two points are very important—they determine that modern religion is essentially a “faith capital market.”

Faith Capital Market

If you are a Bitcoin believer, you don’t need to fast or practice asceticism; you only need to run a full Bitcoin node or hold Bitcoin.

When your faith in Bitcoin is challenged—whether by debates over block size or by smart contract chains like Ethereum, Solana—you don’t need to participate in holy wars. You still only need to run a full node or hold Bitcoin.

Both running a full node and holding Bitcoin can be seen as religious rituals of this religion. These rituals do not promise a good life or an afterlife of bliss; instead, they provide tangible material and spiritual rewards through price performance.

Similarly, debates over block size or the emergence of new chains like Ethereum and Solana ultimately lead to the continuous increase in the total market cap of cryptocurrencies. In crypto, conflicts of faith no longer result in physical destruction or spiritual conquest—instead, they create a situation opposite to traditional religions: while traditional religions conflict to explain the world and end up dividing it, crypto conflicts resemble sparks of creation, like the universe expanding infinitely after the Big Bang—growing bigger and more vigorous.

The universe is vast enough to contain countless Earths. The capital market is also vast enough to accommodate countless tokenized beliefs.

Of course, Bitcoin is a specific modern religion. But from the perspective of pioneering the “faith capital market,” its significance far exceeds that of a specific modern religion. I call it “Religion Without a Church.” Today, Bitcoin has undergone secularization similar to traditional religions—manifested in rituals from running full nodes, to HODLing, to almost no crypto participant emphasizing its specific meaning, instead it quietly sits atop the pyramid of the crypto market like a totem. Just as Christmas is no longer a Christian religious holiday in today’s world, we enjoy Christmas trees, gifts, the festive atmosphere, and even wear Christmas hats on social media avatars, but we may not be Christians.

You could say Bitcoin is just cryptocurrency, because if Bitcoin collapses, the entire crypto market will cease to exist. The value of all cryptocurrencies is fundamentally based on Bitcoin’s value. But I prefer not to define Bitcoin that way—what is Bitcoin’s core value? Digital gold? Tokenized energy? Fiat currency killer? In my view, Bitcoin’s core value is that it established a form of modern religious faith—namely, the faith capital market.

Secularization

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

Take Christmas as an example: the global commercial output generated by Christmas (holiday retail, gifts, travel, decorations, and related consumption) has significantly surpassed the commercial output of traditional Christian institutions (such as donations, church tickets, sales, and related income). According to Statista and the National Retail Federation (NRF), the US holiday retail total in 2024 is estimated at about $973 billion, expected to break $1 trillion for the first time in 2025. This is just data from the US, which accounts for about 40-50% of global Christmas consumption.

In contrast, the traditional “commercial value” of Christianity—such as tithes, offerings, church tickets (like tourist church visits), sales (books, souvenirs), and related income—amounts to approximately $1.304 trillion, according to the “Global Christianity Status 2024” report by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

If we exclude contributions from non-Christian tourists and souvenir sales, this $1.304 trillion figure must be further discounted.

Secularization has transformed Christmas from a strict religious holiday into a global cultural phenomenon. This has, to some extent, expanded Christianity’s influence but also diluted its core religious essence.

The same applies to Bitcoin and its entire faith capital market. Just as many around the world see Christmas merely as a day of joy, more and more crypto market participants are entering solely for speculation.

This is neither right nor wrong; it is an unstoppable process. But the question we want to raise here is: does celebrating Christmas shake the faith of traditional Christians? And does the huge wave of speculation shake the faith of traditional Bitcoin believers?

Similarly, in secularization, the joyful atmosphere of Christmas does not cause Christians to doubt their faith, but the speculative atmosphere in the crypto market causes believers to feel nihilism and frustration. One of the best recent proofs is the viral Twitter post “I wasted 8 years of my life in the crypto industry.”

Where does the problem lie?

Myths

I dare not draw a quick conclusion on this issue. From the intuitive feeling of a crypto enthusiast, I would be very cautious and say that it might be true, but more likely, Bitcoin has developed too quickly, and the fundamental belief system of Bitcoin believers is much smaller compared to traditional religions.

More importantly, the crypto industry has gone too far in the “technological myth.” For a long time, whether industry practitioners or speculators, everyone has been repeatedly seeking an answer to a question—“What else can blockchain technology be used for?” Practitioners use this to determine their entrepreneurial direction, speculators use it to identify their targets. When everyone is pursuing faster, more efficient, and practically applicable blockchains, it is essentially self-destructive.

If the crypto industry is just a second Nasdaq, then it’s just wasting money on repetitive work. And wasting money is a trivial matter; the more serious harm is the diminishing understanding of the “faith capital market” and the consumption of faith itself.

Without Christianity, there would be no pop culture Christmas. Without faith-formed capital markets, there would be no paradise for entrepreneurs and speculators. If we ignore this obvious causal relationship, we will keep asking, “What new narrative can we create to attract more people into the crypto market?”

Both traditional religions and cryptocurrencies inevitably face this question—“In different eras, how to attract young people with different cultural preferences?” Bitcoin has given a new answer, astonishing the traditional religions in less than 20 years. Now, it’s up to Bitcoin and the entire crypto industry to face this challenge.

The Savior

Meme coins are the saviors of the crypto industry.

First, the foundation of the faith capital market is Bitcoin, but that doesn’t mean we need to aggressively promote Bitcoin maximalism again. The most fundamental and fanatic elements of religion are often niche—whether it’s the cypherpunk spirit or apocalyptic predictions of the collapse of traditional finance, their novelty for the younger generation is diminishing, and they have high barriers to understanding.

In other words, to revive Bitcoin as a specific religion, we are actually underestimating Bitcoin itself, because what we need to revive is a “Religion Without a Church”—a cognition that everyone’s belief can be gathered through the internet in the crypto market today, which not only can bring material wealth but also unleash infinite power.

The core value of Bitcoin is “you and I both believe it has value.” This may seem like a trivial statement, but it is actually a grand delegation of the decentralized value interpretation right. Anyone can write “value equals one gram of gold” on a piece of paper, but convincing others of its value is impossible without any anchoring or authoritative endorsement. Starting from zero, crossing language, culture, geography, and other barriers, and ultimately gaining recognition from institutions and governments—this greatness is vastly underestimated by the masses.

Throughout history, individual consciousness has been extremely weak and easily trampled, so much so that we have underestimated ourselves as independent, living individuals—the value of each idea. In fact, most resources in this world are spent on wars—wars invading our consciousness. Political elections, advertising, even some basic education—everything consumes enormous amounts of money, all just to make you and me believe that something is good or bad.

The internet is great; it allows our ideas to cross all boundaries, to continuously exchange and collide around the clock. Cryptocurrency is great; it makes us vividly see what we can achieve when we understand each other’s ideas, reaching a massive scale through exponential growth.

The greatness of cryptocurrency is not only underestimated but also misunderstood. While house-building technology is impressive, the core value of a house is to provide a place to live. “A peer-to-peer electronic cash system” is an ingenious concept, but its core value is that people recognize Bitcoin as a valuable, usable electronic cash—like money. Over the years, we have created countless blockchains claiming to be faster, more efficient, and more useful, fantasizing that this will attract more real people into the market.

It’s like thinking that, apart from religion, phenomena like Christmas can be easily copied and mass-produced. We think that holding a sword makes us a master swordsman, but in reality, we have neither sword nor the heart of a swordsman.

Second, meme coins have never truly experienced a complete and mature bull cycle. Even today, many still believe that meme coins are just crazy speculation with no real value. Since last year, the popularity of pump.fun and Trump’s coin issuance have polluted the true definition of “attention tokens” and meme coins.

What is a true meme coin? Honestly, I don’t even like the term “meme coin.” It originated because early $DOGE and $SHIB succeeded wildly despite being considered useless. We tend to look for reasons after success but ignore the value of faith. So, okay, their success was because that smiling dog image had a huge influence worldwide, so we call it a “meme coin.” Then, we continue to carry on with internet classic meme symbols—Pepe, Wojak, Joe…

Here, I must pay tribute to Murad, the first person to systematically explain what a “meme coin” really is, propose a set of quantifiable quality standards, and deliver a speech on a large stage. His “meme coin supercycle” theory has gained significant influence in the crypto world.

He insightfully pointed out a crucial point—memes are merely a syntax sugar for faith assets. True faith assets must, like Bitcoin, clearly communicate their doctrine, what we are facing, what we need to change, and how to influence or even change the world.

Therefore, $SPX is good because it is clear—clearly telling people that we want to mock traditional finance by surpassing the actual value of the S&P 500. Similarly, $NEET is good because it is clear—telling people that the nine-to-five life is just a scam, and we need to wake more people up to escape the slavery of work.

Just as Bitcoin believers practice asceticism through price fluctuations, creating true faith assets is no easy task. In this process, new religions outside Bitcoin must find their true, clear positioning and meaning internally, unite and strengthen large communities, and externally expand their influence. It will be a long journey, and not every small step will be reflected in the price.

Meme coins are the saviors of the crypto industry. This is because, when everyone realizes that “meme coins” are just a misleading term that misses the essence, and “faith assets” once again shine brightly in the crypto market, everyone will exclaim, “Meme coins are back!” But in fact, “faith assets” are the essence of this market—they are inherently present, and I wouldn’t say they are indispensable.

Conclusion

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

Greatness cannot be planned; we cannot predict what will make the next wave of cryptocurrency a top global topic. It is a form of ascetic practice. Bitcoin is a sociological model, a cyber religion, a religious form. If we forget this, the entire crypto industry is nothing more than a “business” based on Bitcoin consensus. And what businesspeople want is never the continuous strengthening of consensus but always increasing revenue.

I cannot change anything, nor do I intend to. But I will stick to my belief—faith in the faith capital market.