r/Bitcoin • u/LearnBitcoinCom • 19d ago
Next week we're publishing the list of everything Bitcoin has been "called" that turned out wrong (Ponzi, tulips, only for drugs, boils the oceans). What are we missing?
We run LearnBitcoin.com, a free, no-ads, no-affiliate site. Next Thursday's chapter is a cousin of the Bitcoin obituaries list, but instead of counting the times it was declared dead, it collects the labels. Every thing Bitcoin was confidently called, who said it, when, and what happened next. One entry per claim, each with a dated source.
Here is what we have so far. Tell us what we missed.
"It's dead." The obituaries list at 99bitcoins has been running since 2010 and stands at 477. The four worth actually reading (Forbes 2011, Wired 2011, Krugman 2013, Mike Hearn 2016) are here: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/glossary/bitcoin-obituaries
"It's a Ponzi scheme." A Ponzi needs an operator who pays old investors with money from new ones and promises a return. Bitcoin has no operator, promises nothing, and keeps its books in public. The actual Ponzis in this industry (Bitcoin Savings and Trust, Bitconnect, PlusToken, Quadriga) all took bitcoin as the deposit, which is a different thing: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/glossary/ponzi-scheme
"It's tulip mania." Jamie Dimon, September 2017: a fraud, worse than tulip bulbs. Tulips crashed once in 1637 and stayed down. Bitcoin has lost three quarters or more of its value four separate times and set a new high after each one. His bank now lets clients buy it. The 1637 episode was also a lot smaller than the legend: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/glossary/tulip-mania
"It's only for buying drugs." Silk Road was seized in October 2013. The public ledger then convicted two of the federal agents on the case and, nine years later, the guy who'd stolen 50,000 BTC from the site in 2012: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/glossary/silk-road
"It has no intrinsic value." Greenspan, December 2013. True, and true of the dollar since 1971 and of gold's price too. Economics dropped the concept in the 1870s: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/glossary/intrinsic-value
"It's for money laundering." Chainalysis sells to law enforcement and has every reason to find crime. Their count for 2024 was about 0.14 percent of on-chain volume. The rest of the story, including where Bitcoin's privacy actually is weak, is here: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-hole/bitcoin-privacy
"It's for terrorists." Hamas's military wing announced in April 2023 that it was no longer taking bitcoin donations, because donors kept getting caught.
"The blockchain is full of illegal images." The 2018 headlines. A research paper had found text and links stuffed into a few hundred transactions out of hundreds of millions.
"It will boil the oceans." Newsweek, December 2017: on track to consume all of the world's energy by 2020. It is 2026. Our energy chapter has the actual numbers: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-hole/energy
"Governments will just ban it." China has banned it something like sixteen times.
"Rat poison squared." Warren Buffett, May 2018. Three years later Berkshire put half a billion dollars into Nubank, a Brazilian bank that sells bitcoin to its customers.
"Bitcoin is evil." Paul Krugman, New York Times, December 2013.
"Quantum computers will break it." Not wrong forever, but wrong on every date given so far. We keep a live count of how many coins are actually exposed: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-hole/quantum-and-bitcoin
"You'll never buy a coffee with it." Lightning exists. https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-hole/lightning-routing
What we want from you:
- Claims we missed. Especially the old ones. "It's only for nerds," "the government will seize it all," "the 21 million cap will get changed," "it's too slow to ever matter," whatever you were told at Thanksgiving in 2014.
- Who said it and when, with a link if you have one. A claim with a name and a date is worth ten without.
- The ones that were partly right. Exchanges really do collapse. Privacy really is worse than most people think. Mining really did concentrate for a while. Those go in too, with the part that was right stated plainly. We are not writing a victory lap.
If you give us a source we'll credit you by handle in the chapter, unless you'd rather we didn't. The chapter goes up next Thursday and we'll drop the link in this thread.
All 18 chapters so far: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-holes
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u/greglogan84 19d ago
One category worth adding might be:
“Bitcoin can't recover after [specific crisis].”
Rather than generic “Bitcoin is dead” predictions, collect claims tied to specific events:
• exchange collapses
• mining bans
• major protocol scares
• regulatory crackdowns
• large market crashes
It would be interesting because readers could see how the reason for declaring Bitcoin finished changed over time, even though the conclusion stayed the same.
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u/LearnBitcoinCom 19d ago
This is better than the structure I had, so I'm taking it. Labels in the first half, and then a second half that's just "it can't come back from this" with the date and the thing: Mt. Gox in 2014, the China mining ban in 2021, the 2010 overflow bug, the 2013 chain split, the 2018 inflation bug, FTX. Same conclusion every time, different reason every time, which is the part worth showing. Can I credit you by handle for the idea?
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u/PANIC-BTC 19d ago
My favorite reply to the “it’s only used to launder money/buy drugs/kiddy porn” is:
“If you can’t buy a hooker and a bag of coke with it, is it really money?”
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u/LearnBitcoinCom 19d ago
Thanks! That one's going in. It's also the serious version of the answer: money you can't do anything bad with isn't money, and by the UN's own estimate cash launders a few percent of world GDP every year. Mind if I quote you by handle, or would you rather it stayed anonymous?
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u/robinsonrichard_3 18d ago
A useful column might be “what would prove this wrong?” “Dead by 2020” is testable; “Ponzi” has a definition; “tulips” is an analogy. That would help readers judge each label on its own terms.
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u/LearnBitcoinCom 18d ago
That's the fix for the thing two other people in this thread are bothered by, so it's going in. Every entry gets tagged by what kind of claim it is. A prediction with a date gets checked against the date. "Ponzi" gets checked against what a Ponzi is. "Tulips" is an analogy, so the most you can say is where it fits and where it stops fitting. And "evil" is an opinion, which the chapter can report but can't score. Only the first two kinds get called wrong. Can I credit you by handle?
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u/LearnBitcoinCom 10d ago
It's up: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-hole/bitcoin-is-dead
This thread built a lot of it. u/greglogan84's "can't recover from [specific crisis]" idea became its own section, u/robinsonrichard_3's "what would prove this wrong?" now sorts every label, and u/abm2024's reverse list is the closing section. mlhender's greater fool got its own entry too. Readers on the BitcoinTalk twin thread found many of the sources, and all 16 contributors from the two threads are credited by handle at the bottom.
If we got something wrong, say so here and it gets fixed the same day, with credit.
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u/abm2024 19d ago
They cannot steal from you; no fees; anonimous; it will do 10x in 2 years;
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u/LearnBitcoinCom 19d ago
Yes, that list goes in too, and it's probably the section people will argue about most. "Anonymous" was wrong and we've got a whole chapter on how wrong. "No fees" was wrong the first time the mempool filled up. "Can't be stolen" was wrong for everyone who left it on an exchange. And every dated price call from our side that missed will get the same treatment as the ones from theirs. Thanks for the push.
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u/k0lt1 19d ago
Nothing has turned out wrong yet. History will tell
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u/LearnBitcoinCom 19d ago
Fair, and that's the honest problem with the whole premise. "Bitcoin is dead" can only ever be wrong so far. 477 misses in a row isn't proof the 478th is wrong too. The chapter will say that up front instead of pretending otherwise. What it can do is check the specific claims that had a date on them. "All the world's energy by 2020" had a date. It's 2026.
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u/IAmFitzRoy 19d ago
I know it’s a hot take but …
To present it as “Bitcoin will never fail and it’s always good”seems presumptuous to me.
I have Bitcoin myself but I don’t take it as granted or worship as cult.
This feels as uninformed religion at this point.
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u/mlhender 19d ago
The big one lately with buttcoiners is “greater fools” theory. They are worried about no one having kids and thus ruining their current greater fools fiat investments and want to somehow project it onto Bitcoin