A year ago, I participated in a debate on Twitter Space, "Is Bitcoin's development today based on faith or capital manipulation?" Deep down, I felt that this debate should not have taken place, and I fell into deep frustration for a while after the debate.

I have always believed that the core value of the cryptocurrency industry is consensus and culture, or in other words, faith. When I left my job in the traditional industry four years ago and fully committed myself to this field, I held this mindset. Along with the successes and failures of trading, my emotions have fluctuated countless times, but my belief has never changed.

For cryptocurrency players, 2025 has been more of a disappointing year. As this year is about to pass, we still have not been able to solve the biggest problem facing the cryptocurrency market today—narrative failure and lack of faith.

As an ordinary practitioner in the cryptocurrency industry, although my work is very mundane, over these four years, I have seen and thought about many things. I have always had a vague feeling that one day I would systematically write these thoughts into an article. Now is the time.

Bitcoin is a Modern Religion

Christianity has Jesus, Buddhism has Siddhartha Gautama, 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 delve into more detailed comparisons, we will find that Bitcoin shares many similarities with traditional religions beyond the aforementioned aspects. For example, Bitcoin has its own doctrines (the modern financial order will eventually collapse, and Bitcoin will become Noah's Ark when the end of the modern financial order arrives), its own religious rituals (mining and HODL), and has also experienced divisions during its development. After reaching a certain scale, it has become a tool used by governments for specific purposes, and so on.

However, 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 cryptocurrency industry and even carries a hint of irony, is undoubtedly the most fundamental characteristic of the modern religion represented by Bitcoin. What I emphasize here is not the degree of decentralization of a blockchain network, but whether "the cohesion of consensus is a decentralized process."

Satoshi Nakamoto, the "creator god" of Bitcoin, chose "self-exile." He gave up his authority, thus creating a brand new world. Bitcoin has no god symbolizing central authority, nor does it have a central individual or entity that actually possesses divine power. It has grown and thrived in a reverse, bottom-up manner compared to traditional religions. The Bitcoin white paper, along with the phrase in the genesis block "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks," has never been changed. As long as you are interested, you can interpret them in any way you want.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the most human-like "creator god," yet also the least human-like, as he exhibits non-human moral standards, or ideal pursuits. Satoshi possesses not only Bitcoin worth billions of dollars but also the ability to destroy this religion, like having a button that could destroy the world, yet he simply vanished. If you think deeper, after so many years of Bitcoin's development, Bitcoin believers believe that Satoshi will always protect the world he created, and even today, when governments around the world have begun to believe, you will find how incredible this all is.

Secondly, "the internet" makes Bitcoin unlike traditional religions that rely on face-to-face preaching, war conquests, or immigration to attract followers. The internet not only allows Bitcoin's dissemination to no longer present itself linearly and geographically like traditional religions but also gives Bitcoin a modern infectiousness, such as meme culture, to attract the younger generation.

Of course, there are also "dedication and return," as well as "division 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 believer in Bitcoin, you do not need to fast or practice austerity; you only need to run a Bitcoin full node or hold Bitcoin.

When your faith in Bitcoin is challenged, whether by the block size debate or smart contract public chains like Ethereum and Solana, you do not need to participate in a holy war; you still only need to run a Bitcoin full node or hold Bitcoin.

Whether running a Bitcoin full node or holding Bitcoin can be seen as the religious rituals of this Bitcoin religion. These rituals do not promise you the hope of a better life or give you aspirations for a fulfilling afterlife; instead, they provide tangible material and spiritual returns to believers through price performance.

Similarly, whether it is the block size debate or the emergence of new public chains like Ethereum and Solana, the various arguments ultimately lead to the continuous increase in the total market value of cryptocurrencies. In cryptocurrency, conflicts of faith no longer lead to physical annihilation and spiritual conquest; instead, they present a situation completely opposite to traditional religions—traditional religions conflict to explain the world, ultimately dividing it. The conflicts in cryptocurrency are like the sparks that create the world, like the universe expanding infinitely after the Big Bang, growing larger and more prosperous.

The universe is vast, accommodating countless Earths. The capital market is also vast, accommodating countless tokenized beliefs.

Bitcoin is certainly a specific modern religion. However, from the perspective of having created the "faith capital market," its significance far exceeds that of a specific modern religion, which I call "the religion without a religion." Bitcoin has developed to this day, and like traditional religions, it has gone through a process of secularization, specifically reflected in the religious rituals from running a Bitcoin full node to HODL, and then to the point where almost no cryptocurrency players emphasize its specific meaning, but rather it quietly occupies the top of the cryptocurrency market pyramid like a totem. Just as Christmas in today's world is no longer a Christian religious holiday, we enjoy Christmas trees, Christmas gifts, and the festive atmosphere, putting on Santa hats for our social media profile pictures during Christmas, even though we may not be Christians.

You could say that Bitcoin is cryptocurrency because if Bitcoin collapses, the cryptocurrency market will cease to exist. The value of all cryptocurrencies is fundamentally based on the value of Bitcoin. But I am reluctant to define Bitcoin this way—what is Bitcoin's core value? Digital gold? Tokenized energy? Fiat currency killer? In my view, the core value of Bitcoin is that it establishes a form of modern religion, namely the faith capital market.

Secularization

Whether traditional religions or Bitcoin, secularization is a double-edged sword.

Take Christmas as an example; the global commercial value brought by Christmas (such as holiday retail, gifts, travel, decorations, and related consumption) has significantly exceeded the commercial value of traditional Christian institutions (such as donations from believers, church tickets, sales, and related income). According to estimates from Statista and the National Retail Federation (NRF), the total holiday retail sales in the U.S. for 2024 are approximately $973 billion, expected to surpass $1 trillion for the first time in 2025. This is just data from the U.S. market, which accounts for about 40-50% of global Christmas consumption.

In contrast, the traditional "commercial value" of Christianity, such as donations from believers (tithes, offerings), church tickets (like tourist attraction churches), sales (like books, souvenirs), and related income, according to the "Global Christianity Status 2024" report from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, totals approximately $1.304 trillion.

If we disregard the contributions of non-Christians to Christian-related tourist attractions and souvenirs, this $1.304 trillion should be further discounted.

Secularization has transformed Christmas from a strictly religious holiday into a global cultural phenomenon, which has certainly expanded the influence of Christianity to some extent but has also diluted the core of the religion.

The same is true for Bitcoin and the entire faith capital market it has created. Just as many people around the world view Christmas merely as a day of joy, an increasing number of cryptocurrency market participants are also entering solely for speculation.

This is not a matter of right or wrong; it is an unstoppable inevitable process. But the issue we want to point out here is that celebrating Christmas has not shaken the faith of traditional Christians, while the massive wave of speculation has shaken the faith of traditional Bitcoin believers.

Similarly, secularization—the joyful atmosphere of Christmas does not cause Christians to doubt their faith, while the speculative atmosphere of the cryptocurrency market has led cryptocurrency believers to feel nihilism and frustration. The viral Twitter post "I wasted 8 years of my life in the cryptocurrency industry" is one of the best recent proofs.

Where does the problem lie?

Myth

I dare not easily conclude on this issue. From the intuitive feelings of a cryptocurrency player, I would cautiously say that it may be the case, but more likely, Bitcoin has developed too quickly, and the basic base of Bitcoin faith itself is much smaller compared to traditional religions.

More importantly, the cryptocurrency industry has gone too far down the "technological myth." For a long time, both industry practitioners and speculators have been repeatedly seeking an answer to one question—"What else can blockchain technology be used for?" Practitioners use this to determine their entrepreneurial direction, while speculators use it to determine their speculative targets. When everyone is pursuing faster, more efficient, and more applicable blockchain solutions, it is undoubtedly self-harm.

If the cryptocurrency industry is just a second Nasdaq, then it is merely wasting money on repetitive tasks. Moreover, wasting money is a trivial matter; the real serious harm is the dilution of the understanding of the essence of the "faith capital market" and the consumption of faith itself.

Without Christianity, there would be no popular culture Christmas. Without a capital market forged by faith, there would be no paradise for entrepreneurs and speculators. If we ignore this obvious causal relationship, we will naturally continue to struggle with the question, "What new narrative do we need to create to attract more people into the cryptocurrency market?"

Whether traditional religions or cryptocurrencies, they inevitably have to think about this question—"In different eras, how to attract young people with different cultural preferences?" Bitcoin has provided a new answer, astonishing traditional religions in less than 20 years. Now, it is time for Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency industry to face this challenge.

Savior

Meme coins are the saviors of the cryptocurrency industry.

First, the foundation of the faith capital market is Bitcoin, but that does not mean we need to fervently promote Bitcoin maximalism again. The most fundamentalist and fanatical existences in religions are often niche; whether it is the spirit of cypherpunk or the apocalyptic prophecy that traditional finance will eventually collapse, the novelty it brings to the new generation of young people is gradually declining and inherently has a high threshold of understanding.

In other words, to revitalize Bitcoin as a specific religion is actually to underestimate Bitcoin, because what we really need to revitalize is a "religion without a religion," a recognition that each person's faith can coalesce in the cryptocurrency market through the internet in modern times, not only to gain material wealth but also to unleash boundless power.

The core value of Bitcoin is "we all believe it has value." This may seem like a trivial statement, but in reality, it represents a significant decentralization of the authority to explain value. You and I can take a piece of paper and write "worth one gram of gold" on it, but we cannot persuade anyone to accept its value without any value anchor or central authority backing it. Starting from zero, we have crossed barriers of language, culture, and geography, and even gained recognition from institutions and governments in the end. This greatness is vastly underestimated by the public.

Throughout history, individual consciousness has been extremely vulnerable and can be trampled upon at will, to the point where we underestimate our value as independent and living individuals, the value of each of our thoughts. In fact, the majority of the world's resources have been consumed in wars—wars that invade our consciousness. Political elections, advertising, public relations, and even some of the most basic common sense education we consider—all of these consume vast amounts of money, all to ultimately make you and me believe whether something is good or bad.

The internet is great; it allows our thoughts to cross all barriers and facilitates endless communication and collision around the clock. Cryptocurrency is great; it allows us to see very concretely what we can achieve when we mutually understand each other's thoughts, reach consensus, and form a massive scale with exponential growth.

The greatness of cryptocurrency is not only underestimated but even inverted. While the technology of house construction is indeed great, the core value of a house is to provide shelter. "A peer-to-peer electronic cash system" is undoubtedly a brilliant concept, but its core value lies in the collective recognition that Bitcoin indeed has value and can be used as electronic cash like currency. Over the years, we have created countless so-called faster, more efficient, and more useful blockchains beyond Bitcoin, fantasizing that this would mean more living people would enter this market.

This is akin to believing that, apart from religion, a phenomenon like Christmas can be rapidly and widely replicated. We mistakenly think that having a sword in hand makes us a dominant swordsman, but in reality, we not only lack a sword in hand but also have no sword in our hearts.

Secondly, meme coins have never truly gone through a complete and mature bull market cycle. To this day, many still believe that the value of meme coins lies in the crazy speculation devoid of any value. The popularity of pump.fun since last year and Trump's coin issuance have further polluted the true definition of meme coins with "attention tokens."

What is a true meme coin? In fact, I don't even like the term "meme coin." The reason it exists is that early $DOGE and $SHIB achieved great success when people thought they were utterly useless. We always tend to look for reasons after success while neglecting the value of faith. So, fine, their success is attributed to the huge influence of that smiling dog image worldwide, so let's call it a "meme coin." Thus, let us continue to transport classic internet meme cultural symbols: Pepe, Wojak, Joe…

Here, I must pay tribute to Murad, who was the first to systematically explain what "meme coins" are, propose a quantifiable quality evaluation standard, and deliver a speech on a sufficiently large stage. His "meme coin supercycle" theory has gained significant influence in the cryptocurrency community.

He insightfully identified a crucial point—meme is merely syntactic sugar for faith assets. True faith assets must, like Bitcoin, clearly convey their doctrines, letting people know what they are facing, what needs to be changed, and how to influence or even change the world.

Therefore, $SPX is good because it is clear; it clearly tells people that we should mock traditional finance by surpassing the actual value of the S&P 500. So, $NEET is good because it is clear; it clearly tells people that the nine-to-five grind is merely a scam, and we need to awaken more people to break free from the slavery of work.

Just as Bitcoin believers undergo trials during price fluctuations, creating true faith assets is no easy task. In this process, new religions outside of Bitcoin must not only seek a truly clear positioning and meaning internally, uniting and consolidating the ideas of a large community, but also continuously expand their influence externally. This is destined to be a long process, and not every small progress will be reflected in price.

Meme coins are the saviors of the cryptocurrency industry. This is said because when everyone realizes that "meme coins" are merely a misnomer that does not touch the essence, and "faith assets" once again shine brightly in the cryptocurrency market, people will marvel, "Meme coins are back!" In reality, "faith assets" are the essence of this market. I won't say they are indispensable because they exist naturally.

Conclusion

What the world cares about changes every year, every month, every day, and even every hour. We cannot expect cryptocurrency to always be one of the most关注的事物 in the world. If we lose faith, then this industry should perish.

Greatness cannot be planned. We cannot predict what will cause cryptocurrency to become a top global topic again. This is a trial. Bitcoin is a sociological model, a cyber religion, a form of religion. If we forget this point, the entire cryptocurrency industry is merely a "business" based on Bitcoin consensus. And what businesspeople want is never the continuous strengthening of consensus but the perpetual increase of income.

I cannot change anything, nor do I intend to change anything, but I will uphold my faith, the faith in the faith capital market.

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