The vision Moy articulated was shared by nearly every Bitcoin enthusiast, but opinions on how to actualize these ideas of decentralized money and finance differed widely. From stablecoins to NFTs, almost every category of application commonly used in the decentralized finance industry today has its roots in Bitcoin, but a strong ideological undercurrent started to create a cultural shift toward discouraging and combating these projects. From Satoshi Dice in 2012 to Ordinals in 2024, Bitcoin’s history is littered with experimental projects that have been lambasted for spamming, polluting, or distracting the Bitcoin community from its mission. As a result, the developers, users, and capital that could have flowed to an industry of financial applications running on Bitcoin were incrementally pushed to other public blockchains.
Building on Bitcoin in the Age of Web3
