Why Bitcoin is a Religion

I argue that Cryptocurrencies function as distinct religious beliefs,  which affect ego permeability by playing into our natural tendencies to  perceive attributes of money and value as inherently magic and  spiritual. The longer you have spent in the cryptocurrency community,  the more you will be able to identify with these statements. 

Disclaimer: This  article is written from an entirely secular and Jungian point of view,  any references to spirituality and the supernatural are accepted as  real, psychological and sociological events rather than actual, physical  disruptions of the natural order. I'm simply a practical nihilist /  agnostic with an interest in theology and psychology.

The behavior in the Bitcoin community is often strange. People attack and  defend concepts and ideas with emotional, personal motivations. Many  take criticism of Bitcoin, no matter how valid, personally. 

Others  are fervent in their enthusiasm, where they can only be accurately  described as zealots and fanatics. On the opposite spectrum, some would  refuse Bitcoin even well after every single merchant on earth is using  it.Nowadays, even outside the community, logic seems to have  taken second place. The false idea that adding a blockchain to any  project will instantly improve it, is still alive and well.

Some  love the blockchain, but not the currency, while completely disregarding  that you can't have one without the other. Foaming at the mouth about  these issues isn't even that rare!The religious similarities are slowly beginning to show. Source: Bitcointalk.orgI was already familiar with this classic Apple study, which shows that certain brands can induce real religious sensations and found many similarities. But there was invariably more going on...

Lay  not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth  corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for  yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth  corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where  your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

—Matthew 6:19–21,24 (KJV)Slowly  I began to study how cryptocurrencies get established, and carve out  their own ideological space in the existing ecosystem. Much of it  happened to parallel the research I had done on Christianity, Islam,  Judaism, Buddhism, and the personality cult of Kim Il-Sung in North  Korea.

I introduced bitcoin to a friend  and they started talking about how the bible predicts a currency take  over and its the start of the Revelation“ - Random Bitcointalk Member "Bush" May 21, 2013

Interestingly enough, it turns out that Bitcoin is fully compliant with Sharia,  the Islamic banking law, whereas the Euro and Dollar are not. Bitcoin  does not suffer the shortcomings of money posited in the Bible, and by  ancient Greek philosophers such as Parmenides, who claimed that  everything in the world is interconnected and that this is inevitable.The  internet is a multi-dimensional substrate which gives birth to  countless parallel realities which exist within themselves and interact.  

Bitcoin unifies these realities with value, an idea more terrifying  than we can suppose. Money moves the world, and we all know that more  people worship wealth than religion. Bitcoin is well on its way  to being a fully mainstream, international currency. However, this  neither detracts nor adds to the legitimacy of the subjective spiritual  phenomena that it induces. To illustrate both points simultaneously,  consider that Bitcoin has died 71 times, and therefore is continuously reborn in the psychic reality of the public. 

In fact, notice how wealth and religion are usually mutually exclusive.  When joining a religion, you must give up money. When creating a  religion, you must obtain money or destroy it. 

Creating  a cult creates a vacuum of power, which is filled by its followers.  Bitcoin without followers required you to beg and beg to get one pizza for 10,000 BTC. At this point its exposure was not numinous, it was purely software. No magic here yet. 

Antropologist Anthony F.C. Wallace

proposes four categories of religions.

Individualistic: most basic; simplest. Example: vision quest.The  Bitcoin network is simultaneously one of the most advanced motivation  and incentive systems ever built, and one of the simplest ideas ever.  Everyone remains an individual, but everyone contributes to the  collective of an entirely independent monetary system. Nobody is in  charge of Bitcoin, except cryptography and math. And mathematics,  as Einstein famously said, is our insight into the mind of god. 

Here  we can witness that fiat currency such as the Dollar requires faith in  the government, the federal reserve, and the individuals in power.  Bitcoin only requires in the faith of interpersonal value transfer, and  the mind of god. It is therefore spiritually "clean" money. I believe  this can be felt, additionally to simply being understood by the  rational mind.Bitcoin even has a method of 'sacrifice' wherein if  a private key is lost, the Bitcoins associated with that key are lost  forever and irretrievable. This makes all other Bitcoins worth more  through scarcity. It's a 'sacrifice' for the good of everyone else on  the system, and some people even send them to provably unspendable addresses, which by definition don't have a private key that can be calculated.

Many  believe this is what Satoshi did with the first Bitcoins, essentially  absolving himself of the sin of greed. This is very symbolic for a  currency. In the Genesis block (the first block, and yes it's actually  called that) contains this message from Satoshi himself:"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

.And  now the fact that other Cryptocurrency 'blockchains' are having  crowd-sales of their supply, is still not very reassuring. People used  to seize power through armies and pillaging, now they use corporations  to promote centralization of the internet. Because if they centralize  it, everything inevitably revolves around them. 

Any  'blockchain' that isn't immutable and doesn't have an adequate network  effect like Bitcoin, is essentially a normal database like they have  existed since even before the 80s. But at the moment, everyone seems to  be practically horny about the buzzword "blockchain" and  completely nonsensical and entirely redundant projects are getting  millions of dollars in funding. To do what? To build a database.Adding  a blockchain to your product doesn't make it better. But it makes you  richer. Creating a new blockchain because you are jealous of the success  of Bitcoin, but want to have utter control over every transaction, is pointless. But it makes you richer.

That's  entirely identical to how the system works today. Banks print money,  and centralized servers manage your balances. Everyone is trying to play  god and create their own money to become the next "Crypto Prophet". A  blockchain with central control and no immutability is a normal, boring old database. Bitcoin  is immutable, has the first mover advantage, and has an insanely secure  network. It has built-in incentive mechanisms and strong cryptography,  without ANY central control or influence. Other projects lack these elements, and in the cases of government or bank created currencies: often all of them.

Please stop giving these people money. They're tricking you. Note:  If you do not understand how to code or recognize damp, putrid  programming BS, it's much better to play it safe and stick with Bitcoin  like NASDAQ, NYSE, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. If you're relatively computer literate, this shouldn't require more than a modicum of common sense.

At this point I feel it is important to re-iterate that NONE of this  is supernatural. I'm writing this from an entirely agnostic perspective,  and I am not religious whatsoever. Psychological, neurological, and  sociological phenomena related to religion are empirically verifiable.  Whether the belief contains measurable truth itself, is irrelevant.

A very old idea:  Parmenides, a philosopher in Ancient Greece and founder of the Eleatic  school, stated that everything in reality is connected and imbued with  value through projection. An idea that greatly mirrors the Internet and  the Bitcoin network today. 

Seaford emphasizes that the  Ionians were first to use coinage, and did so at the same time they  produced philosophical cosmology. He therefore promises a “cumulative  argument, correlating the development of coined money with the  development of early Greek cosmology as a whole” (188). His basic  explanation is that the Ionians’ material principles and Parmenides’ One  are “unconscious projections” of the ideal substance of exchange-value  (188–9).

- A  review of Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy  (Seaford, Richard) by Joshua Reynolds, Northwestern University.

Shamanistic: part-time religious practitioner, uses religion to heal, to divine, usually on the behalf of a client.

Many  early Bitcoiners have a strong anarchist motivation against the  government. This has obvious, utterly real reasons. However, where this  becomes inherently spiritual is when Bitcoin is often seen as a  'panacea' that will automatically dismantle the government somehow on  its own.

The idea here is that the banking system is made sick  by the symbolic 7 sins and decentralized currency is the only cure. In  many ways, this is technically accurate. But an overly paranoid and  aggressive reaction remains unwarranted, and will not accomplish much to  change it.Jesus in his polemic would have extolled the virtues  of the one true Blockchain for this reason, the freedom from financial  tyranny and judgement by man.

• Pride
  
  We are superior and our system is the best. E.g. MasterCard with this extremely non-sequitur attack video on Bitcoin.
• Greed
  
  Fractional reserve for profits.
  
  
• Lust
  
  Treasury Officials Met With Prostitutes, Accepted Gifts From Regulated Institutions
  
  
  
• Envy
  
  Ross Ulbricht helps facilitate seamless money laundering and drug trade < $28 million dollars: LIFE IN PRISON.
  
  HSBC Bank has to give up around 9-20% of its official profits to continue laundering billions of dollars of cocaine and heroin for cartels.: Nobody goes to jail.
• Gluttony
  
  The stereotype of a large bellied, penguin-esque banker is as old as time itself.
  
  
• Wrath
  
  Australian government gets off on stealing from pensioners. 
  
  
  
• Sloth
  
  Banks  operate with notorious inefficiency, especially when compared to a  system based on mathematics and distributed consensus. Bitcoin does not  have opening times, or downtime.

Communal: elaborate  set of beliefs and practices; group of people arranged in clans by  lineage, age group, or some religious societies; people take on roles  based on knowledge, and ancestral worship.

Whoever  is closer to Satoshi (the creator of Bitcoin) in communication and  time, is given extra reverence and respect. For example, early adopter  and investor Roger Ver has earned the title "Bitcoin Jesus".Most  followers thus choose their secondary prophet, who is a developer and  therefore a type of secular magician or priest e.g.: Vitalik Buterin,  Gavin Andresen, Gregory Maxwell, Peter Todd. Then they wait for future  'revelations'. Developers who are actively engaged in coding often find  this bizarre. In fact, the 'prophets' definitely notice, and  find this  bizarre. 

We see a lot of this as people either rally for, or  against side-chains and block size changes. Arguably, 99% of them  understand neither. And yet the glint in their eyes, the violence in  which they stand firmly in their belief, would suggest that they are  experts.  

Many will strain to explain either when confronted,  while others parrot quotes by their designated 'prophet'. Now, I am  aware that the Bitcoin space is filled with brilliant programmers and  developers. But those who display aggressive behavior are usually  neither. 

A notable exception is Peter Todd, a talented developer  whose reactionary and vocal presence greatly attracts many of  the confused users to his ranks. But if anything, that is well-executed  PR.

Now, I do not claim to understand the technical debate adequately, which is why I refrain from voicing an opinion about it. If I am pressured to, then I make sure to demonstrate what I think about both sides. 

It  is simply incredibly bizarre to me, that people will go insane in a  debate where they have made no effort to learn more than the words that  represent individual sides. 

There is a crossroad of explanations as to why people appear to be heavily emotional.

• Some people are trolling. They usually have the least motivation, but the most vivid comments. Rarer than most think.
  
  
• Some people are PAID to be pro, or against something. As Coinfire has shown, this is hardly debatable.
  
  
• The  promise of great wealth is a manic depressive trigger, as any  behavioral economist and psychiatrist knows. This effect occurs because  the unconscious mind is time-agnostic, as evidenced by temporal  distortions in art and dreams. And so, the vision of future wealth  becomes numinous and real in the present.
  
  Their ability to turn  numbers into money, and therefore influence, is a classic example of  transmutation and blurs the line between illusions and delusions of  grandeur. The more money investors have sunk into a cryptocurrency, the  more they will defend it. Not only to rationally increase their wealth,  but to preserve this ideology and their new future status.
  
  Magic,  in its classical definition, is the power of words and will over  matter. There is nothing supernatural about this, apart from the  subjective sensations it creates. There is a difference between knowing  something, and FEELING that you know something with every fiber of your  being. The latter bypasses the logical mind altogether.
  
  Religiously devout followers of cryptocurrencies unconsciously feel that  their magical ability will grow exponentially in proportion to their  faith. If you've read Robert Anton Wilson, then the source of this  ability is easily justified: it is the magic wand of the federal reserve  which turns paper into money.
  At  MtGox and Paycoin, members invested their last savings well after  everything was lost. Rationally, they would have noticed the  overwhelming amount of tangible evidence. One argument here is that they  haven't. I don't believe that for a second.  
  
  Pictured above:  Mt.Gox founder Mark Karpeles being stopped at his Tokyo office by a  disgruntled user who flew across the world to see him. Why? Because Mark decided to code his own exchange and managed to lose / steal roughly $473 million dollars worth of Bitcoin.
  
  In  the crypto-currency world, negative buzz and drama gets more exposure  than Coca Cola on Christmas. You can be sure that 99% of these  individuals have seen the criticism, and the evidence against them. This  only increases their conviction, until the feeling of enlightenment  dissipates and reality sets in. This can take a really, really, really  long time. If ever.
  Pictured above: Homero Garza, known scammer and extremely trustworthy looking individual.
  
  They  begin moving the goalpost and accusing outsiders of causing this to  them. Example: Users in the Paycoin forums asking for genuine, emotional  sympathy for CEO Homero Joshua Garza, because he is getting criticized  for being a verified scammer. And they believe that's what made him  fail.
  
  The criticism doesn't get through, and indeed elicits an  opposite reaction, because it has now become part of their identity. It  is no longer a t-shirt they wear, but is metaphorically equivalent to  their skin they are wearing. This is also called the backfire effect.
  
  Coinfire (as  a singular counterexample) showed us that close to nothing in the  Bitcoin space undergoes more than a shallow investigation if any at all.  A press release gets you an in with most news sites, which spread  it like wildfire. In short, a post on PRNewswire immediately means it is  true.
  
  As we see, the Bitcoin space is not particularly receptive  to evidence. Every other project has a whitepaper, which often contains  long-winded theoretical rants instead of an actual plan. Even though  Satoshi famous said "words are just a help until the code gets there", a  whitepaper is now somehow entirely satisfying.
  
  This is adequate  to satisfy the zealots, whose inability to mentally parse the content  and their tendency to hero worship, leads them to either assume or wait  until their 'prophet' has given them the green light.
  
  This actually creates scenarios where It is better to have a whitepaper, than an actual product.
  
  I  would argue that most people suffer either from a lack of effort on  this part, or an active cognitive dissonance that they cannot shake  without causing substantial internal conflict. If you do not understand  a whitepaper, a natural assumption is that it must be so brilliant that  it exceeds your ability to fathom it.
  
  You may be offended at this  point. But that's only because religious beliefs are easy to offend,  and nothing has ever been shown to possibly dismantle  evidence-blindness short of mockery. I would argue that trolling in this  manner is a public service, because people are spending their money on  crowdfunds entirely on FAITH. 
  
  Faith is fine if you are following  a religion with positive spiritual values, however rare that may be. In  the cryptocurrency world, these values are replaced by crowdfunders  that seek to get more and more money. I have never seen the case of a  crowdfunder to create another crowdfunder to create another crowdfunder  anywhere else (Bitshares PTS, AGS, X). Funnily enough the second  iteration is called Bitshares AGS, which actually stands for  Angelshares. Another religious reference! 
  
  The reason  crowdfunders are so popular is to obtain a sense of legacy. To feel as  if you are part of giving birth to something greater. It is the thrill  of personally waving the magic wand and turning paper into money. This  is exciting.
  
  When people donate to a church, their faith  increases. But if they are supposed to use that money to help the sick  and poor (as they assume the church would), suddenly they do not feel  interested because it is not entirely about them. Philosopher Slavoj  Zizek has addressed this in his critique of capitalist gratification.
  
  Truly Bizarre:
  
  In a company,  the programmer is either a respected employee or equivalent to an ape  (a.k.a code monkey, which theoretically is below an ape). In an  open-source project, he is a valued contributor and in the best case  receives some form of formal respect (honorary title, etc.)
  
  In  the cryptocurrency world, the lead programmer is often in the center of a  personality cult. It is hard to deny this, when we witness people  worshipping Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Andresen instead of the work they are doing. ( No offense to you guys, I think you're awesome.)
  
  This can reach an unhealthy extreme, where nothing these individuals say can ever be wrong. 
  
  But  as mentioned earlier, Josh Garza had his own personality cult as well.  His accomplishments? Copy-pasting the source code of Peercoin and  changing the name. Poor guy even forgot to take out the licensing  agreement.

"Skub" by Perry Bible Fellowship (pbfcomics.com)Ecclesiastical:  dominant in agricultural societies and states; are centrally organized  and hierarchical in structure, paralleling the organization of states.  Typically deprecates competing individualistic and shamanistic cults.

What  is strange here, is that Bitcoin doesn't deprecate competing  individualistic cults. While it attacks the legitimacy of fiat currency  such as the dollar, it currently deprecates individualistic payment  processors such as Paypal, Western Union, etc. But these have no  religious connotation whatsoever! There are undeniably positive aspects  of this 'pseudospiritual togetherness'.

However, the strong  symbolism of surveillance and power on the U.S. Dollar as well as the  motto "In God We Trust", may prove to be a worthy adversary. This was  first added to paper currency in 1957 as a response to communism,  marking a formal unification of god and money. Constitution be damned,  even congress says our money is spiritual!The catholic church, however, thinks that Bitcoin is the mark of the devil.

To expand on why cryptocurrencies function as religions, we can take a look at a cult checklist devised by Michael D. Langone, Ph.D., and see which criteria apply. Keep in mind, this is not a statement on the legitimacy of these beliefs or preconceptions. 

1. The  group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its  leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system,  ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
   
   In the Bitcoin world, this seems to be a common occurrence or Buttcoin  would have nothing to post about. The plight of 'regular money' and  living in the fiat world suddenly becomes a burden for the believer to  escape, and for their worldview to change back becomes exponentially  more difficult. It is akin to walking down a very steep hill.
   
   Many  consider Bitcoin to be above the law, and are genuinely confused when a  legal conflict with the existing system turns out against their favor. 
   
   
2. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
   
   Consider the rise and fall of Paycoin, a pre-mined scam coin that reached the top of Coinmarketcap and bamboozled its members with promises of Amazon and Walmart integration, a $20 price floor, and endless features.
   
   Nothing  convinced the true believers, who held onto their illusory successful  future until every man, woman, and child was screaming scam with  overwhelming evidence to support it. Some still believe.
   
   One  notable function of the Paycoin community was to attack, and ban anyone  who dissented. This creates the famous "echo chamber", colloquially  known as an internet "circle jerk". Paid trolls and supporters fuel the fire.
   
   
3. ‪Mind-altering  practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues,  denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in  excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
   
   Blockchain  mining is not only a possible return on investment, it is also an  electronic 'prayer' by the Bitcoin mining equipment, at least  symbolically. The way it functions is that a random number is generated  and it must be guessed by all mining participants. Many theological  scholars argue that randomness is the mind of god, and empirically it  does in certain ways reflect the structure of space-time itself.
   
   Programmers  can also attest to the fact that long-term coding is very much a  tantric, mind-altering endeavor. For those who do not code at all, the  results seem mystical. If we expand this concept to the development of  strong AI, one could argue it is "playing god". That is a true, yet  ridiculous way to phrase this.  
   
   Note: Superstitious beliefs are not mutually exclusive with technology, as the military's use of a DOUSING ROD  in Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Georgia, India, Iran, Kenya, Niger,  Qatar, Romania, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates  and Vietnam clearly shows.
   
   
4. ‪The  leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should  think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date,  change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear,  where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline  children, and so forth).
   
   Although this was clearly not Satoshi's intention, his quotes have  become unequivocal gospel in the eyes of many 'followers'. To question  them is either dangerous, or futile. We see a tendency towards humor in  this aspect, such as core-developer Gavin Andresen joking whether to  start his 'benevolent dictatorship'. 
   
   You  may think, "All these people saying Satoshi is a god, they are clearly  joking!" Yes, but the fact that this is so widespread and generally  identified with demonstrates that there is clearly an underlying causal  agent at hand. And many actually do see Bitcoin as their primary religion.
   
   The  value of fiat relies on faith. The faith in a violent force will punish  you if you refuse it as your primary 'magic'. Money is the triumph of  will over matter. If you think about it, the entire world moves on it.  If you want to literally move a mountain, all you need is a mountain of  money.
   
   When a government ceases to exist, is its currency still valid? 
   
   At  this point we can consider... Scientology is a tax-exempt religion. Why  not Bitcoin? After all, some believers have the idea that we are  entering a new form of time like the birth of Jesus Christ...
   
   
5. The  group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its  leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the  Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on  a special mission to save humanity).
   Avid Bitcoiners  often fail to communicate with outsiders, because they either assume  prior knowledge or speak in a way that is 'offensive' to conservative  outsiders. It appears that this is induces a positive sensation, which  is not uncommon in cults.
6. ‪The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
   
   Every  cryptocurrency has users who will attack other cryptocurrencies in an  overt, and hateful manner. Banks are branded, albeit not unjustly, as an  incredible evil which is clearly "them" and not "us". Paypal and  Western Union are not simply motivated by greed, they are perceived to  be evil and satanic.
   
   
7. ‪The leader is not  accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military  commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream  religious denominations).
   
   Satoshi's anonymity, the  decentralized nature of Bitcoin development, and the uncensorability  & immutability of the blockchain are more than sufficient to fit  this criterion. Satoshi said let there be light, and his creation became  eternal. There is no realistic way to destroy Bitcoin, providing an  optimal substrate to grow faith.
   
   
8. The group  teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever  means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in  behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or  unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or  friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
   
   Activists engage  in multi-level marketing without a direct payoff to them. They convince  friends, family to buy cryptocurrencies and other currencies even at  the expense of their friends and themselves. 
   
   
9. The  leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence  and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and  subtle forms of persuasion.
   
   If you do not believe in  [THIS COIN], you are an ignorant, uneducated poor pleb who is on a  government handout to shill against the glory of [THIS COIN]. 
   
   
10. Subservience  to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and  friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had  before joining the group.
    
    Heavy Bitcoin activism has the  potential to disrupt familial and other relationships. Some people  commented that I made this up, and that it doesn't make sense. Sigh.
    
    There  are people who will push Bitcoin onto friends and family as if it were  Herbalife or Amway, making them paranoid and eventually alienating  themselves. 
    
    I've read posts where girls have dumped their  boyfriends for talking too much about Bitcoin and nothing else. Does  this sound like mere enthusiasm, or can we finally admit that it borders  on religious zeal?
    
    The cryptocurrency scene in general is even  worse. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see people coax their family  members into Paycoin and other scams, because they were blinded by  euphoria and feelings of enlightenment.
    
    There were threads  written in absolute destitution after a family member had convinced  grandma or grandpa to invest their savings, or to dip into brother's  student loans. $20,000 into Paycoin at its peak is now worth around $40.
    
    
11. ‪The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
    
    For  anyone familiar with the cryptocurrency community, this is the primary  drive, and I dare say that you could equate the level of aggressiveness  with how Jehova's Witness present their beliefs and attempts at  conversion. The communities bitcointalk and /r/bitcoin make this more  than clear.
    
    
12. ‪ The group is preoccupied with making money.
    
    The  Bitcoin space is rife with so called investors who do not understand  Bitcoin, or literally anything about it. Many ignore its potential as a  payment method or currencies, and see it as a way to "make the numbers  go up". This draws frequent criticism that Bitcoin is a get rich scheme.
    
    
13. ‪Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
    
    Not  so much expected, as the fact that people get stuck in loop behavior  and organize group activities. This aspect is not as prominent, since  many members shun 'the real world' and have the option to rely on  digital communication.
    
    Getting lost in a loop and repeatedly  refreshing the page which shows Bitcoin exchange rates is a bit like  numerology. Obsessive, widespread and vacant.
    
    (Keep in mind that  I am not referring to being a day trader. That's different. This is  entirely pointless refreshing and OCD checking behavior.)
    
    
14. ‪Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
    
    If  you offend Bitcoin, it will be as difficult for you to co-exist  with fanatics as if you had insulted Jesus in a church. You may even  earn yourself threats, for being part of the "one world order".
    
    
15. The  most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life  outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to  be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or  even consider leaving) the group.
    
    This is usually only  seen in scamcoin a.k.a shitcoin communities. Loyal members are suddenly  confronted with failure by the project, a loss of funds, and character  assassination of their leader. Paradoxically, these members will invest  MORE money. It takes an incredibly long time for these individuals to  recover.
    
    Consider that Auroracoin, pumped to $120 at one point, has dropped to $0.03 and people still believe it will be accepted by merchants everywhere. As long as they PRAY hard enough, and spread the Gospel.

What  is the end result of all of this? Users and people otherwise involved  in Cryptocurrencies operate on the desire to create their own legacy,  inside an entirely religious ecosystem. Bitcoin even has its own  eschatology, wherein it purports that the traditional banking system  will be entirely demolished and people will be freed from economic  tyranny. Admittedly, it's not as unrealistic as the rest.

Why  do especially centralized Cryptocurrency projects talk in parables?  Because opaque, purple prose written in a brand new language is the way  in which belief systems are propagated. For further reading, please  refer to George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"Please join the discussion and leave a comment if you can.Thank you for your time.