The media had declared Bitcoin to be dead when it was at $0.23 nearly 10 years ago. The media is saying it again now when Bitcoin has fallen below $4000, after having stayed around the price point of $6500 for some time. So far, the cryptocurrency has died nearly 323 times from December 2010 till now, according to the obituaries written by notable personalities around the world. However, Jeffrey Tucker, the editorial director of the American Institute for Economic Research and a cryptocurrency advocate, is of the opinion that people have not recognised the value propositions and use cases of cryptocurrency as yet.
Bitcoin obituaries on 99bitcoins.com
The first Bitcoin obituary to get published on 99bitcoins.com said — “the only thing that’s even kept Bitcoin alive this long is its novelty. Either it will remain a novelty forever or it will transition from novelty status to dead faster than you can blink.”
There were a lot more obituaries following that one -
“But make no mistake, Bitcoin is not the currency of the future. It has no intrinsic value. . . . Bitcoin? Nada. There’s nothing keeping it being a thing. . . . “ when Bitcoin was at $433.57.
“Bitcoin is not a store of value, and it’s not a reasonable investment candidate,” when Bitcoin had crossed $2500.
“bitcoin is really worth nothing, since it’s backed by nothing or no one. It’s a confidence game that has value only because people are convincing other people that it’s worth something. Got it! Ponzi scheme. Confidence game. Fraud.
Anyway, bitcoin is headed for a value of zilch. It’s only a matter of when,” when Bitcoin stood at $6,610.66 recently.
Jeffrey Tucker’s take on bitcoin
Bitcoin has survived all these times when the media declared that it was dead, and despite the recent fall, crypto advocates are standing firmly by their belief in cryptocurrency.
Jeffrey Tucker, in his article on Forbes, quashes the opinion that Bitcoin is worth nothing. He points towards the fact that Bitcoin’s transactions per block and transactions per day have been rising, and Bitcoin prices have been relatively stabler this year.
Tucker also problematizes the view that wealth is something that can be touched, and value can’t be made of zeros and ones. He also highlights that people don’t understand the features of crypto — Distributed network, hashing strategies, proof-of-work protocols, cryptography. This lack of understanding is what makes them undervalue cryptocurrencies and fail to recognise their use cases. According to Tucker, blockchain is the best technology ever discovered for documenting ownership rights.
Tucker, like a lot of other staunch crypto enthusiasts who stand by cryptocurrency because of its value propositions, believe that the people who write obituaries for bitcoin this time will be proven wrong yet again.
At press time, Bitcoin is up/down from the previous day’s price and is trading at XXX.
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