Someone once said that the Bitcoin (and subsequently Bitcoin Cash) community keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again because we keep enabling the bad actors or toxic personalities to climb ranks within the community. And if we look back, it is true and undeniable. The question is, can we learn from our mistakes and identify the bad actors and toxic personalities early on before they cause any major problems?

If we look back from the early days of Bitcoin (and later Bitcoin Cash), all the bad actors started out with good intentions. They did great work and contributed towards the community. And almost always, at some point, with enough influence, they start to abuse that power.

Fortunately, if one were to pay close attention, there are early warning signs of these bad actors and toxic personalities. Unfortunately, I understand that most people prefer not to speak up against these bad actors or toxic personalities for fear of retaliation. And based on what happened before, we also know good people simply prefer to leave the community rather than confront these bad actors and toxic personalities. And that’s the kind of harm they can do to the community; it drives away the good people.

In the past, I prefer to tolerate and condone such bad actors and toxic personalities because I have enough problems in my life as it is, no need to have more problems coming my way. Unfortunately, tolerating and condoning bad actors hasn’t work out well at all for us.

And that brings to me George Donnelly. I don’t understand why he regularly bash important Bitcoin Cash projects and contributors. Here are 3 examples that happened in the last 2-3 weeks alone. Yes, George bashing 3 important BCH projects in just the recent 2-3 weeks alone.

Today, he has set his tweets to private. Yesterday, it was public. I wonder what he has to hide.

Oscar, Founder of Venezuela Workers, Bitcoin Cash Project said (to George), "You can critic it (Venezuela Workers) whatever you want and whenever you want, I just don’t think your opinions on social media are helpful, they are rather harmful... I don't understand (in your case) bashing negatively projects that support BCH on your Twitter... As I said, you have my private contact, but you choose to publicly delegitimize the website... From you so far, there's only bashing the website publicly several times, not just one but more." Source: https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/llhhl1/bch_is_going_up_a_lot_of_freelancers_are/gnpygcr/

Is @localbitcoincom a dead project?... Engage bully pulpit. Source: https://twitter.com/GeorgeDonnelly/status/1366873895329009679

I think @bitcoincashnode should be able to respond on twitter like the rest of us. They have a formal rep and 3000 BCH in reserves. They are the new dominant mining node. There is really no excuse to not respond. Source: https://twitter.com/GeorgeDonnelly/status/1361708765922422784

Notice the arrogance and self-entitlement expecting BCHN to have a customer support officer on standby for him on Twitter.

$Dash Masternode Owners called George Donnelly @georgedonnelly: cockroach fake selfish opportunistic lacking emotional awareness arrogant self-entitled... Source: https://np.reddit.com/r/DashUncensored/comments/dokfjk/dash_masternode_owners_called_george_donnelly/

That’s not all...

george was defunded by the Dash DAO because he failed multiple times to reach the goals he promised in his proposals. He was very energetic and we gave him multiple chances even though he was very difficult to work with.

After he was defunded he rage quit over the course of about a week and had an embarrassing meltdown where he blamed everyone else for his failure. He spent over a year telling everyone how great Dash was and then did a 180 as soon as he was defunded.

We tried to warn many within bch he was toxic and lied about what happened with his failed Dash proposal. Looks like not much has changed with george.

Source: https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/jlsxzw/why_are_people_hating_george_donelly/gauu4lc/

I don’t think many people knew that George Donnelly left Dash on very bad terms and with a bad reputation. On its own, we don’t know if the problem is with Dash or George, but if this guy came to a totally new (Bitcoin Cash) community and starts having conflicts with so many other different people, then I hope you guys can notice a pattern here.

“I faced down US Marshals, mainstream TV celebrities and the federal government.” - George Donnelly

He brags about this as if having problems with the Dash community, the BCH community, US Marshals, TV celebrities, and the federal government is something to be proud of.

I also remember him having arguments with Jonathan Toomim, im_uname, etc. These are reputable contributors to the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem.

In case you think these are one off incidents, here are some other evidence that George Donnelly is extremely aggressive and argumentative. If this one guy has a problem with so many different people, this is a huge warning sign of a toxic personality.

Source: https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/jpqt4q/prove_that_george_donnelly_is_a_fraudster/

Source: https://twitter.com/RTaylor05/status/1188571263133839361

Notice something very subtle but very manipulative going on. When George Donnelly bashed and criticized others, he uses the words “helping” and “constructive criticism” to describe his actions. But when I pointed out his toxic behaviors (with clear evidence), he uses the words “bullying” and “gaslighting” to describe the action. By attaching such emotive words (positive emo when it’s in his favor and negative emo when it’s not in his favor), it is clear to me that George is a highly manipulative person. I have seen this kind of toxic behavior before and the outcome is usually pretty damaging.

I can understand if you don’t want to speak up against bad actors or toxic personalities to avoid retaliation but at the very least, please don’t defend, enable or promote these people (like we had done in the past). That strategy has proven to produce very bad outcomes for us in the past.

Edit: Some additional thoughts when I observed that people kept bringing up George's videos and how visible his face is everywhere. And then I saw this video (credits to /u/pyalot) 5 signs you are dealing with a narcissist and realize how those signs are similar.

In psychology, this is called the familiarity principle and can be used to manipulative people to gain influence.

Many incredibly smart and hardworking folks like Jonathan Toomim and im_uname and Roger Ver and Marc De Mesel and many others (too many to name here, sorry!) are creating lots of value in the background for the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. Just because some of their work is less visible and they don't churn out daily videos of their faces (like George Donnelly), it does not mean their contributions are anything less important/valuable.