The Evolution of Cryptocurrency Industry Information Sources From Bitcointalk to Twitter

The Evolution and Transformation of Cryptocurrency Industry Information Sources A Journey from Bitcointalk to Twitter

Author: Huang Shiliang

Recently (mid-October 2023), Reddit announced the closure of its cryptocurrency token called “moon” in certain subreddits, causing the price of moon to plummet by 85% instantly.

In 2020, the news of Reddit issuing community tokens was exciting within the industry. Just think about how many new users Ethereum could gain from Reddit’s user base. However, the token has ultimately failed.

I don’t know the details of how moon token was managed, but today I just want to reminisce about these years in the cryptocurrency circle, where I mainly obtained information from various informational platforms. Looking back, it’s quite interesting.

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Back in 2014, the blockchain industry only had Bitcoin, and the main source of information at that time was online forums.

At that time, almost all the experts in the industry were posting on bitcointalk.com, and this forum served as the primary high-quality source of information. Additionally, there were more private and technically advanced discussions happening in email groups.

In China, the main source of industry information was also forums, with 8btc being the leading platform at the time.

In 2015 and 2016, I felt that Reddit became the main platform for the cryptocurrency circle, especially with discussions about Ethereum’s rise and Bitcoin’s scalability.

Back then, I spent time every day on r/bitcoin, r/btc, r/ethereum, and other specialized subreddits on Reddit.

If we look at the entire internet, social media had already become the main source of information. In China, it was platforms like Sina Blog, Weibo, WeChat, and Zhihu. I’m not entirely sure about the situation overseas, but it’s likely similar with platforms like Facebook and Twitter. However, the cryptocurrency circle chose to discuss on specialized forums.

I feel that after 2017 and 2018, the forum model became less popular in the cryptocurrency circle. Instead, media websites with strong professional editing and content curation became mainstream. In China, the highest quality sources of information were probably Chain News and 8btc, while internationally there were professional platforms like Coindesk and recently, the notorious rumor-monger, Cointelegraph.

These professional media websites collected and edited information from various platforms, as well as commissioned content through editing, translating, and modification by editors.

During that time, more and more Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) emerged in the industry, and they had their own platforms such as public accounts, Twitter, or personal websites.

For example, the most famous figures like Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Andresen, who people may have forgotten by now, had their own websites.

Media platforms also organized various interviews and offline conferences to create more content.

These high-quality articles scattered across different platforms would be collected and edited by professional media platforms before being presented to their user base.

Many “xx Finance” publications emerged during that time, offering similar media platform services.

All of these can be considered as Web 1.0.

In 2019, Chinese media platforms faced a fatal blow.

Meanwhile, there has yet to be a comprehensive and professional media platform like Chain News or 8btc in the overseas market. It may be due to stricter copyright laws in the United States, which discouraged platforms from haphazardly reproducing or editing other people’s articles.

I feel that the main communication tool for the cryptocurrency circle has become IM tool, such as various social media groups on WeChat and Telegram.

In the cryptocurrency circle, various groups have always been popular. In 2014, everyone was still using QQ groups, but it never felt like the mainstream, after all, people talk too much and information cannot be collected.

However, after 2019, with reliable professional media platforms being shut down, the main source of cryptocurrency information for Chinese people has become these groups. Everyone is mingling in these groups.

In 2021, with the popularity of NFT and DAO, as well as special airdrop strategies, Discord has become the daily communication tool for many cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

In addition to the booming trend of DeFi mining and the sharing of various mining profit tips, various groups have been established, including many paid groups such as professional research reports and knowledge planets.

It can be said that the information channels have been completely decentralized.

I feel that decentralization is not convenient for the majority of users. Everyone still desires a centralized source of information. There is an invisible force that will drive the information to gather on a centralized platform.

In 2022, with Musk successfully promoting Dogecoin on Twitter, Twitter slowly became the main gathering place for blockchain information.

Now, almost all projects, big and small players, and individual KOLs speak and gather information on Twitter (X.com).

Even difficult whitepapers and research papers are shared on Twitter.

From the history of these information sources, can we draw any valuable conclusions?

I feel the following conclusions might be meaningful:

1. In the early days, the main platform where things (such as Bitcoin before 2014) ferment is often niche forums or other niche platforms.

It would never be on mainstream social platforms.

If you want to dig deep into the history of Bitcoin and blockchain, you need to delve into the posts on forums like bitcointalk.

If you want to grasp a currently unformed industry in the future, don’t forget to pay attention to various niche information discussion platforms.

2. The gathering place for blockchain information has gone through a typical process of centralization, decentralization, and centralization again.

I estimate that this historical process of decentralization and centralization will not stop, X.com will not be the endgame for the gathering place of blockchain information, and crypto on X.com will be hit again.

I feel this is the destiny of cryptocurceny: it starts small, grows, centralization becomes more serious, gets attacked, forced to decentralize, successfully decentralizes, develops and gives birth to various central giants, then gets cleared or self-destruct by a mysterious force or in the name of Satoshi Nakamoto, and goes through another round of decentralization, and then it repeats…

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