Bitcoin Graveyard And Bitcoin Obituaries Is Where Anti-Bitcoin Fudsters Go To Die

Fewer Pronouncements of BTC’s Death In 2019, But Here Are The Top 5. Bitcoin Graveyard And Bitcoin Obituaries Is Where Anti-Bitcoin Fudsters Go To Die

Bitcoin has long been disregarded as a speculative asset class that is doomed to fail by mainstream media outlets around the world.

The apathy toward the world’s preeminent cryptocurrency has been embodied by countless articles that have either hailed the death of Bitcoin or predicted its impending demise.

For the past three years, Cointelegraph has reviewed the top annual Bitcoin obituaries courtesy of 99Bitcoins’ list of news articles that have unwittingly foretold the end of the cryptocurrency.

In 2017, Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency market saw the biggest surge in history, when BTC’s value soared to over $20,000 by December of that year. The lofty gains were eventually curtailed by a humbling price correction and stagnation that ensued for much of 2018.

Unsurprisingly, the number of Bitcoin obituaries skyrocketed during those years. In 2017, Bitcoin’s “death” was predicted 124 times, while 2018 saw that number reduced to 93. At the end of 2019, a full decade since Bitcoin’s inception, the number of articles proclaiming the end of the cryptocurrency had fallen to just 40.

In this listicle, Cointelegraph looks at the top five Bitcoin burials of the last year.

Bitcoin Will Go To Zero

The annual World Economic Forum in Davos is a major event in the global financial and banking sphere, and cryptocurrencies have been part of its debates and forums over the past few years.

During a TV debate hosted by CNBC in Davos in last January, Bitcoin’s underlying protocol became a major point of contention in its potential future as a valued cryptocurrency.

BCG Digital Ventures Founder Jeff Schumacher highlighted concerns regarding the way in which Bitcoin derives value from its proof-of-work protocol — suggesting that its value could plummet to $0.

“I do believe it will go to zero. I think it’s a great technology but I don’t believe it’s a currency. It’s not based on anything.”

The debate itself was not centered around an attack on Bitcoin but a robust debate around the future of cryptocurrencies and the power of the protocols that underpin the blockchain technology used to keep them running.

Bitcoin Is “Absolutely Worthless”

As Bitcoin’s price began to rebound from a lowly start in 2019, an article in Gizmodo slammed the cryptocurrency and people who have invested into the space.

The author of the piece was scathing in his take on Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency bounced back to a four-month high following a difficult market climate in 2018.

“It’s fake money that’s about as practical to use in the real world as Monopoly bills.”

The writer also took aim at Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus algorithm, criticising the energy-intensive demands of recording transactions and maintaining the blockchain.

Bitcoin Is A “Digital Game” — A SharkTank investor

In May 2019, renowned investor Kevin O’Leary of SharkTank fame likened Bitcoin to playing a “digital game” in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

O’Leary’s comments came as Bitcoin was sharply appreciating in value midyear. His major criticism was that investors could not take large sums of value in and out of Bitcoin because buyers demand a guarantee on the value of BTC they’re receiving.

O’Leary made reference to his own efforts to buy real estate in Switzerland using Bitcoin, with the difficulty being that the receiver of such a large amount of Bitcoin is not ready to trade other assets due to the risk associated with BTC’s price volatility.

“To me, it’s garbage, because you can’t get in and out of it in large amounts.”

Buffett — Bitcoin Is A “Gambling Device”

Globally respected investor Warren Buffett, founder of Berkshire Hathaway investment group, has long been a dissenting voice towards cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular.

Earlier this year, Buffett cast fresh aspersions on the space while speaking to the press ahead of his company’s annual meeting.

Buffett went as far as saying that Bitcoin had become a “gambling device” and that the cryptocurrency hadn’t produced anything.

“I’ll tear off a button here. What I have here is a little token… I’ll offer it to you for $1000, and I’ll see if I can get the price up to $2000 by the end of the day… But the button has one use and it’s a very limited use.”

While slamming Bitcoin, Buffett gave credit to the power of blockchain technology while pointing towards JP Morgan’s recently developed blockchain products.

Bitcoin Not Built To Last

An article in the New York Post speculated in June that Bitcoin would not survive in the future, despite another price surge occurring that same month.

The cryptocurrency had jumped up to $13,000, marking a massive increase in value from the beginning of the year, when it was hovering around $3,000.

The author of the article suggested that the surge could have come down to Facebook’s reveal of its Libra cryptocurrency plans, which may have boosted market sentiment in the cryptocurrency sector.

The argument suggested that Facebook’s product is something that provides real value and could be the catalyst that leads to the demise of Bitcoin.

“In fact, it might spell the beginning of the end for bitcoin. There are almost no major Wall Street investors of substance with meaningful track records who have invested in bitcoin. To me, it’s fool’s gold. There are no financial statements, no balance sheets, no revenues or assets.”

Dawn Of A New Decade

A decline in the number of sweeping statements made about the future lifespan or looming demise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is an interesting development in the space.

The dawn of 2020 brings down the curtain on the first decade of the crypto era. Bitcoin led the way with its inception in 2009, and the space has subsequently exploded over the past 10 years.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrapped up his take on the last decade in a blog post early in the new year, in which he vilified the multitude of articles which had inaccurately written off Bitcoin.

“There were over 379 articles written, prematurely declaring the end of Bitcoin. Not only did Bitcoin survive, it thrived, becoming the top performing asset of the decade. The naysayers were proved wrong and we learned an important lesson about human nature: most big breakthroughs are contrarian ideas that people dismiss and ridicule at the start.”

As Armstrong suggests, the success and adoption of Bitcoin birthed an era of innovation that spawned a plethora of cryptocurrency and blockchain projects that have driven the development of the space.

Toward the end of the decade, the interest in the space spilled into mainstream industries. The world’s best investment firms started gaining exposure to crypto while some of the biggest companies began using blockchain technology or developing their own enterprise software and tokens.

A combination of all of these factors may be the reason for the significantly fewer Bitcoin obituaries being published. The focus seems to have shifted to major developments in the space, like Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency plans and moves by regulators around the world.

What Is The Bitcoin Graveyard?

The Bitcoin Graveyard Was Created For Two Reasons:

1. Dispel FUD On The Notion That Bitcoin Is Dead. 
2. Show The World The Power Of The Lightning Network ⚡️ By Allowing People To Buy Flowers To Lay Next To Any Tombstone And Also Leave A Note Of Condolence.

Price Per Flower Is Only 1000 satoshi or 0.01 mBTC or $0.035

How Do I Leave Flowers Or My Condolences With The Lightning Network ⚡️

The Bitcoin Graveyard uses the Lightning Network (LN) which is an amazing technology built on top of Bitcoin. By using the LN you can seamlessly send & receive various sizes of Bitcoin in seconds and virtually for free! Learn more about the Lightning Network here

How Do I Get And Setup A Wallet?

In order to leave flowers or a message of condolence via the Lightning Network, you need a Lightning Network enabled Bitcoin wallet.

For Android devices, we highly recommend the Eclair Wallet, which you can get here

For iOS devices, we highly recommend Blue Wallet, which you can get here

Don’t have time to setup LN enabled Bitcoin wallet, but still want to leave flowers or your condolences?

Not to worry, you can send your contribution to the following Bitcoin Address: 3CLPp9wFCn9CD59nvi2xWpBR4b6q8VK3gD and don’t forget to shoot us a message at contact@niffler.com with the TX id and we will help get you all set up from there.

Where Does All The Money Go?

Any and all contributions are first and foremost greatly appreciated. All proceeds are reinvested back into the Niffler.co platform and community that’s designed to promote adoption by way of helping people learn more about blockchain, cryptocurrencies and in particular cryptocurrency trading! You can check it out here

Sources

Primary source for obituaries: 99 Bitcoins

Updated: 12-28-2020

2020 Saw The Fewest Bitcoin ‘Obituaries’ In 8 Years

Bitcoin has been declared dead or dying roughly 390 times since 2010. But this year it’s dying much less frequently.

In 2020, bitcoin (BTC, +0.48%) has been reported dead or dying only 11 times, per a list of these faux obituaries maintained by a Singapore-based website called 99 Bitcoins.

Bitcoin’s yearly “obituary” count hasn’t been so low since 2012, three years after Bitcoin launched. The team behind the website confirmed to CoinDesk the list is actively maintained to date.

The sharp decrease in obituaries correlates with bitcoin’s record-breaking price action this year after breaking its 2017 all-time high in November with a total year-to-date gain of over 270%.

In the past, it was “in vogue to publicly dismiss or even shame those who believed in Bitcoin’s value proposition,” said Kevin Kelly, global macro strategy lead at Delphi Digital and former equity analyst at Bloomberg, in a direct message with CoinDesk.

But now the game has changed.

“Mass retail speculation and viral memes have been swapped for family offices and world-class macro investors,” Kelly said.

Bitcoin’s quickly-growing cadre of institutional buyers includes giants like MassMutual and Guggenheim. And their sizeable investments – combined with signs of rekindled retail interest – make announcing the bellwether cryptocurrency’s death increasingly difficult.

In a December bitcoin report, Kelly’s research team wrote, “Institutional investors have not only turned net long since September, but also the magnitude of their net exposure, measured in BTC, has increased relative to prior periods as well.”

Curiously, authors of disingenuous bitcoin “obituaries” have overlooked both times when the network actually has “died,” according to Pierre Rochard, Kraken’s lead bitcoin strategist.

In 2010, an inflation bug briefly enabled anyone using the network to create an infinite amount of bitcoins, which, for many intents and purposes, caused the network to die, Rochard said. In 2013, Bitcoin “died” a second time when a flawed version of its source code unexpectedly caused the block size limit to increase.

“In both cases bitcoin was promptly resurrected by the collective will of its users,” Rochard said. To save the network, bitcoin nodes reverted to an older version of the software in 2013 and rewound the blockchain back to a point before the inflation bug in 2010.

“Few critics understand what happened when bitcoin actually died, twice,” Rochard told CoinDesk in an email.

In the aftermath of these incidents, bitcoin’s “robust” fundamentals and “rapid adoption” have created market conditions with multiple “parabolic revaluations,” Rochard said, increasing both its adoption and the attention paid to its technical strength, leaving skeptics with little room for continued death pronouncements.

As bitcoin lives on, “the career risk is no longer from embracing bitcoin,” according to Kelly. “It’s from failing to give [bitcoin] the time and respect it deserves.”

Updated: 5-20-2021

Bitcoin Declared ‘Dead’ More Than 400 Times Now

Wednesday’s market crash triggered yet another barrage of obituaries from mainstream media.

As Bitcoin’s price took a sharp dive to “pre-Elon Musk pump” levels of $30,000, mainstream media took an unsurprising approach covering the marketwide crash by announcing that Bitcoin is dead.

The end of Bitcoin (BTC) has now been announced more than 400 times in 12 years, according to the Bitcoin Obituaries archive. There are 414 obituaries for Bitcoin since its inception in 2010, and Wednesday’s post-mortem assessments of Bitcoin are still being added.

The obituaries range from calling Bitcoin the biggest Ponzi scheme in history to comparing BTC to Monopoly money.

The first year of crypto shows only one record, when Bitcoin’s price was $0.23, explaining that Bitcoin can’t be a currency. More than a quarter of the submissions are related to the 2017 Bitcoin bull run and the huge crash afterward.

While the negative stories on Bitcoin arrive primarily in times of price crashes, Bitcoin obituaries data shows that it’s not unusual to have an article burying the largest cryptocurrency while the market is still growing.

Bitcoin has always been a good topic for the mainstream media to criticize. Its price volatility, the still-unsolved mystery of creator Satoshi Nakamoto, and its decentralized structure that enables usage in illegal transactions make Bitcoin an easy target for sensational headlines.

This week’s price dip similarly triggered apocalyptic headlines from a slew of mainstream media outlets. Over $350 billion was lost in cryptocurrency market capitalization, and altcoins saw a 15%–30% price dip throughout the day. Some major crypto trading platforms such as Coinbase, Binance and Gemini experienced downtimes due to the unusual market activity.

Despite the crash, some experts are convinced that the market will bounce back. Yesterday, Cointelegraph organized a livestream to analyze and understand the market’s situation, with Charlie Burton and Michaël van de Poppe as guests. The question “Was today’s market movement the end of the bull cycle?” received a solid “No” from both guests.

Biden Administration To Probe Crypto Use In Ransomware Attacks

“Expanding cryptocurrency analysis” is part of the U.S. president’s new review of ransomware attacks.

U.S. President Joe Biden wants the federal response to a recent spate of ransomware attacks to focus on the use of cryptocurrency, a spokesperson said Tuesday.

Meat producer JBS confirmed on Sunday it was suffering from a ransomware incident and faced a demand from a “criminal organization,” Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. In response, the White House wants to better evaluate ransomware attacks and track crypto payments to threat actors.

“President Biden has already launched a rapid strategic review to address the increased threat of ransomware to include four lines of effort … [including] expanding cryptocurrency analysis to find and pursue criminal transaction[s],” she said.

Other lines of inquiry include evaluating how ransomware is distributed and working with other nations to “hold countries who harbor ransom actors accountable,” she said.

Ransomware attacks occur when malicious actors deploy software to a victim’s computer or network that essentially locks all files and data. The attackers may offer to send the victim a decryption key if they pay a ransom. This ransom has often been charged in bitcoin (BTC, +4.58%), and such attacks have been becoming more profitable over the past few months, according to a Chainalysis report.

Recent high-profile ransomware attacks include a hijacking of the Colonial Pipeline fuel transport firm, parts of the Irish health service and insurance firm CNA Financial.

These attacks tend to spread much further than just impacting the victim companies. Attacks against firms that provide goods or services may end up disrupting thousands or millions of people’s lives. The Colonial Pipeline shutdown threatened to cause fuel shortages across the East coast of the U.S., while the Irish health system had to cancel medical appointments.

In Tuesday’s briefing, Jean-Pierre said combating ransomware is now “a priority” for the Biden government.

“This builds on President Biden’s executive order, which is now being implemented. The executive order outlines five high-priority cybersecurity initiatives that, if implemented, will reduce the risk of cyberattacks including ransomware,” she said.