“Bitcoin is what I care about. Nothing changed there,” said Held, who has been in the space for over ten years. In his view, the stakes are rising for Bitcoin as the narrative in the crypto industry shifts towards decentralized finance (DeFi) from centralized finance (CeFi), and as market participants “find more meaning building on top of DeFi.”

Popular (former and current) Bitcoin maximalists like Nic Carter, Pete Rizzo and Alex Gladstein have also adopted more moderate stances to open up discussion of other use cases across the crypto industry, whether that be building Ethereum infrastructure, finding utility in stablecoins, or something else. (Rizzo objected to our calling him a former bitcoin maximalist on Twitter after publication.)

“This has been brewing for a while,” Held said. “A large group in the Bitcoin [maximalist] space is moderate leaning.”