The actions of a massive portion of the active community, at least online, act in complete contradiction with the principles of libertarianism. Freedom, liberty, and voluntary interaction. Many rightwing or libertarian Bitcoiners encourage the exact opposite of that, they bully and intimidate and push people to adopt their worldview.

... right leaning Bitcoiners tend to shame, attack, and discourage people who hold different world views than them. Generally deriding attempts to address such people’s needs or issues with Bitcoin. The common chant or reaction is “Bitcoin isn’t for everyone.” Or “poor people won’t ever actually use Bitcoin self-custodially.” It embodies a very “I’ve got mine, so pull the ladder up behind me” attitude about things.

Many of these people espouse and wrap themselves in fantasies of being powerful, rich, and influential. They tell themselves that because they were “smart enough” to buy bitcoin early on that they deserve such a position in the world, and others who were not “smart enough” do not. It’s almost a fetishization of becoming the people that Bitcoin was meant to disintermediate from all of our lives.

Speaking of government interference in markets, this is something else that rightwing Bitcoiners compromise in terms of principles. Making excuses for, or even outright encouraging, the creep of influence on services and products in this space, while simultaneously attacking anything trying to escape the reach of enforcement or regulation. It’s a state of cognitive dissonance, appealing entirely to the market to magically prevent the “poor” Bitcoiners from being abused and taken advantage of in the same way as the financial system, while just pretending Bitcoin’s mere existence will stop government from forcing large private actors to act as an enforcement arm in that abuse.

The libertarians in Bitcoin have for the most part completely lost the plot of what it was originally made for. To disintermediate peoples’ financial lives. They cheer on Wall Street influence, politicians pandering, and the growing institutionalization of the whole system as progress.