Bitcoin, the biggest crypto, has recorded lots of success and massive acceptance in various sectors of the global economy. Nonetheless, despite the considerable achievements that the flagship crypto has seen, several prominent critics insist that the digital asset lacks inherent value.
Based on data acquired from 99bitcoins, a leading crypto information platform, Bitcoin has already encountered 474 death declarations since it launched 14 years ago, with seven of these declarations being made by prominent figures in 2023 alone.
According to 99bitcoins, for any declaration to qualify as one of the so-called “Bitcoin obituaries”, it has to be published by a person with a significant following or a site that has massive traffic. It needs to also say explicitly that Bitcoin is or might become worthless without any ambiguous language like “maybe” or “could.”
The earliest recorded predictions of Bitcoin’s death date back to December 15, 2010, when one businessman Jordan Tuwiner, in an article titled “Why Bitcoin Can’t Be a Currency-The Underground Economist” insisted on skepticism about its future.
Interestingly, Bitcoin was trading at $0.23 at the time of that post. Fortunately, Tuwiner saw Bitcoin’s potential and consequently changed his stand. He went on to launch BuyBitcoinWorldwide in 2015, which is an educational resource for people interested in buying Bitcoin and joining the crypto world.
In that context, Bitcoin was also declared dead in its November 2021 peak, when its price surged to $67,567. At the time, Sam Leith of The Spectator wrote an article titled “The Bitcoin Delusion”, drawing a comparison between the biggest crypto and a ticking time bomb.
Other notable individuals who have made some severely pessimistic statements about Bitcoin include former SEC attorney John Reed Stark and TV personality Jim Cramer referred to crypto as a “big hustle”. Geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan said “Bitcoin will probably go negative” on the Joe Rogan podcast in January 2023 while JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a “hyped-up fraud”.
According to 99Bitcoins, the latest Bitcoin eulogy comes from a famous tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya who said in April 2023 that “Crypto is dead in America” when the Bitcoin price was $27,817.
Buy Bitcoin NowDespite the multiple death declarations and negative sentiment published by critics, Bitcoin has continued showing resilience and positive market performance. Since the first published declaration sometime in 2010 by Tuwiner, Bitcoin has gained more than 11,700,000%.
With that in mind, different people have projected that Bitcoin is ready for more growth, with experts like Bloomberg’s senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone and Ari Paul, the CIO of blockchain firm BlockTower, forecasting that its price will explode past $100,000 soon.
In the meantime, at the time of publication, Bitcoin was trading at $26750 down about 0.2% in the last 24 hours. Since January 1, the flagship crypto has gained nearly 63%, restoring optimism in the market.
