While bitcoin’s price has dropped to levels not seen since January 2022, a number of detractors think bitcoin is on its death bed. Data stemming from the Bitcoin Obituaries list shows the leading crypto has died seven times in 2022, outpacing the first three years of obituaries by year written by bitcoin haters. The last obituary written about bitcoin, opined by the financial journalist, John Plender, claims the leading crypto asset follows the “greater fools” scenario.
List of Bitcoin obituaries in 2022 exceeds the first 3 years of so-called deaths per year
Over Bitcoin’s 13 years, the leading crypto asset has been deemed “dead” or “extremely close to death” by numerous journalists, economists, analysts, and financial experts. In fact, these types of opinions are happening so much that the 99bitcoins.com team has curated a list called “Bitcoin Obituaries”. Website data shows that bitcoin (BTC) has died 447 times since the list began in 2010. This particular opinion that bitcoin was dead was written on December 15, 2010 in an article titled: “Why bitcoin cannot be a motto.”
As the years continued, bitcoin obituaries were published more often, and during the bull run of 2017, there was 124 bitcoin obituaries added to the web portal. The following year in 2018, bitcoin died 93 times, and in 2019, only 41 deaths were recorded. 2020 saw a smaller number of bitcoin obituaries, as the year only saw 14 listed on the website. In 2021, bitcoin obituaries picked up the pace again, and the leading crypto asset saw 47 obituaries written about its so-called demise.
In 2022, there were only seven bitcoin obituaries registered, but the year is not over and it surpassed 2010, 2011 and 2012 by the number of annual obituaries so far. The price of Bitcoin has seen a decline in recent weeks, and it’s entirely possible that more Bitcoin obituaries will be added this year. The latest obituary listed on 99bitcoins.com was written by British financial journalist and Financial Times (FT) columnist John Plender. The post listed as: “Bitcoin will miss bigger fools,” quotes Plender’s statements in his April op-ed. While Plender doesn’t believe in bitcoin, the FT columnist thinks blockchain is a powerful technology.
“There can be no denying the astonishing power of blockchain technology, which is here to last,” Plender writes in his FT editorial. “Yet bitcoin is intangible, risky and incomprehensible to most human beings. While it is increasingly gaining acceptance among professional investors, its performance this year makes it hard to believe it can topple gold from its position as the ultimate bolt hole for frightened money.” The financial journalist adds:
As for the important cultural dimension of the argument, bitcoin, frankincense and myrrh lack a certain ring. The supply of bigger fools will run out in due time.
Gold Bug Peter Schiff Says Sub-$10K Bitcoin Prices Are ‘Highly Likely,’ Schiff’s Recent Poll Shows 54% of 37,000 People Say They Will Still HODL
While bitcoin is not dead, the cryptocurrency still has many detractors like the Iranian-American economist Nouriel Roubini, and the economist and gold bug Peter Schiff. The gold bug Schiff believes bitcoin and other crypto assets will keep falling in value. Schiff recently held a poll on Twitter after he said: “If bitcoin breaks decisively below $30K it seems highly likely that it will crash below $10K.” Schiff then added that this means any BTC holder has an important decision to make. “What will you do?” Schiff asked. “You had better decide now so you don’t panic and make a rash spur-of-the-moment decision.”
Schiff then left a poll in his Twitter feed that gives people choices about what they would do. The top pick was “it won’t fall below $30,000”, which received 19.6% of 37,000 votes. 54.5% said they “HODL” and 15.5% said they would sell and buy cheaper. About 10.4% of participants surveyed said they would sell bitcoin and not buy back. In Schiff’s eyes, bitcoin will always be dead, and he wholeheartedly believes that gold, a precious metal, will continue to soar.
“The 6% weekend drop in bitcoin was in fact a leading indicator of weakness in other risk assets as stock market futures are trading down 1%,” Schiff said on Monday. “Once investors figure out that Fed rate hikes will result in recession but not a significant reduction in inflation, gold will soar,” the bitcoin detractor added.
