Tulips, Bubbles, Obituaries: Peering Through the FUD About Crypto

In the short space of nine years, Bitcoin has thrust cryptocurrencies into mainstream consciousness by shaking up the financial world.

Since its inception in 2009, the preeminent cryptocurrency has thrown a spanner in the works of traditional banking and financial institutions and has paved the way for the creation of a plethora of industry-shaping virtual currencies and blockchain-based innovations.

With that being said, it’s been far from smooth sailing for Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. Dramatic highs and soul-shattering lows have been part and parcel of the past nine years.

The volatility of cryptocurrencies has created more than a few detractors and we’ve seen a number of headlines exclaiming the ‘death’ of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.

These obituaries have come from a wide variety of industry experts and commentators. While they’re almost always subjective, they portray a negative, fear-mongering mentality that detracts from the technological breakthroughs that have been sparked by blockchain technology.

Let’s take a look at some of the instances that have led to mainstream media outlets signalling the death of Bitcoin and examine where the industry is at midway through 2018.

HEADLINES

A brief history of Bitcoin deaths
It’s not difficult to find articles slamming Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies — just look at 99bitcoins.com, which has a compendium of Bitcoin obituaries that has now surpassed the 300 mark.

The earliest headline heralding the end of Bitcoin, according to the website, is an article entitled ‘Why Bitcoin can’t be a currency’ published in a blog entitled The Underground Economist in 2010. In essence, the writer pointed to Bitcoin’s constantly fluctuating value as the main reason why it shouldn’t be considered a currency.

“While Bitcoin has managed to bootstrap itself on a limited scale, it lacks any mechanism for dealing with fluctuations in demand. Increasing demand for Bitcoin will cause prices in terms of Bitcoin to drop (deflation), while decreasing demand will cause them to rise (inflation).”

Since then, the number of headlines suggesting that Bitcoin was doomed to fail has increased year on year. In 2017, there were a total of 118 Bitcoin obituaries articles.

These obituaries are any articles that predict the demise of Bitcoin, based on assumptions or quotes from a wide range of commentators. This includes mentions of fraud, ponzi schemes and money laundering and frankly anything that is negative enough to cast aspersions on the future of Bitcoin.

While the sheer number of articles that have predicted the death of Bitcoin may be humorous, a glance down the list of headlines from various publications tells a different story altogether.

Small scale blogs like the one that is credited for the first Bitcoin death article have a limited reach and aren’t likely to have a profound effect on the sentiment of a large group of people.