Bitcoin Is Dead

A website called 99Bitcoins has maintained a running list of Bitcoin obituaries since 2010 — media articles, expert opinions, and official statements declaring Bitcoin dead, finished, or doomed.

As of 2024, the count exceeds 430.

The declarations came from economists, journalists, central bankers, and prominent investors. Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate in economics, has written Bitcoin’s obituary multiple times. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, called it a “fraud” in 2017. Nouriel Roubini, known as “Doctor Doom” for predicting the 2008 crisis, has declared Bitcoin dead so many times it has become something of a running joke.

Each declaration of death was accompanied by a price that, in retrospect, represented a buying opportunity. The 2018 obituaries, published when Bitcoin was at $3,000, preceded its run to $69,000. The 2022 obituaries at $16,000 preceded its move above $100,000.

This isn’t to say Bitcoin will always recover. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results. But the pattern of premature declarations is worth understanding.

Most declarations of Bitcoin’s death confuse price decline with network failure. When Bitcoin falls 80%, the price is in trouble. The network — processing transactions, producing blocks, enforcing the supply cap — is functioning normally.

The people watching the network rather than the price noticed something different at each “death”: hash rate holding, long-term holders accumulating, the fundamental properties unchanged.

Killing Bitcoin requires stopping its network. Declining prices don’t do that.

Tomorrow: what would actually kill Bitcoin? An honest answer.

— The Daily Bit