25 bitcoin quotes that defined the fight
The builders saw a new monetary network. The critics saw fraud, tulips, money laundering and a civilization-level mistake. Then bitcoin survived, entered regulated markets and forced some of its loudest opponents to reverse themselves.
The bad takes belong at the center of the story.
bitcoin did not become historically important because everyone agreed with it. Bankers, Nobel laureates, central bankers and presidents called it evil, fraudulent, useless, criminal or doomed. Some never changed their minds. Others eventually admitted they were wrong and built products around it.
This edition gives those anti-bitcoin statements equal billing. The question is not whether every criticism was foolish. Volatility, fraud and energy use were real arguments. The revealing part is how confidently influential people predicted that bitcoin itself would vanish, be outlawed or remain outside serious finance.
Great calls, bad takes and spectacular reversals
The critics are no longer buried at the edges. Their most confident predictions are placed beside the history that followed.
The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work.
bitcoin’s central argument in one sentence: remove the need to trust an issuer or intermediary.
Running bitcoin
Two words showing that bitcoin had become a network with a second participant, not just one person’s code.
I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day.
The offer became bitcoin’s most famous early purchase of a physical good.
It’s probably rat poison squared.
bitcoin subsequently became a trillion-dollar asset class held through regulated U.S. exchange-traded products. Buffett has not reversed his view.
bitcoin Is Evil
The line was the headline of his column. bitcoin survived every boom-and-bust cycle that followed and moved into regulated institutional markets.
It’s worse than tulip bulbs. It won’t end well. Someone is going to get killed.
Dimon later said he regretted calling bitcoin a fraud. JPMorgan subsequently gave wealth-management clients access to bitcoin funds.
bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world. That’s all it is. It’s an index of money laundering.
Fink later called his earlier opinion wrong, described bitcoin as a legitimate financial instrument, and led BlackRock into the spot-bitcoin ETF market.
I am not a fan of bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.
Six years later, Trump established a U.S. Strategic bitcoin Reserve and told a White House audience: “Never sell your bitcoin.”
I think the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization.
Munger never softened his opposition. The quote remains one of the clearest generational and ideological rejections of bitcoin.
Crypto is the Mother of All Scams and (Now Busted) Bubbles While Blockchain Is The Most Over-Hyped Technology Ever, No Better than a Spreadsheet/Database.
The market suffered further crashes, but bitcoin’s network continued operating and U.S. spot ETFs were eventually approved.
bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight. So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed.
The United States did not outlaw bitcoin. It instead developed regulated futures, custody, public-company holdings and spot exchange-traded products.
It’s a bubble. It has to have intrinsic value. You have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is.
Greenspan made the remark when bitcoin was still a fringe asset. The network and market remained in operation through repeated drawdowns and recoveries.
It’s not a stable source of value, and it doesn’t constitute legal tender. It is a highly speculative asset.
The volatility warning was fair. The categorical snapshot aged less cleanly after bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador and entered regulated U.S. ETFs.
bitcoin is a highly speculative market. bitcoin is a bubble.
Dalio later called bitcoin “one hell of an invention,” said it had proven itself, and disclosed that he owned some.
Next week I will send to Congress a bill that will make bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador.
El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, turning a monetary experiment into national policy.
And from this day on, America will follow the rule that every bitcoin knows very well: Never sell your bitcoin.
The contrast with Trump’s 2019 “based on thin air” post is one of bitcoin’s most dramatic political reversals.
I do believe bitcoin is digitizing gold in many ways.
BlackRock’s conversion mattered because it was followed by an ETF application and the launch of one of the largest institutional bitcoin products.
bitcoin changes absolutely everything. I don’t think there is anything more important in my lifetime to work on.
Dorsey reorganized much of his public work around bitcoin, including payments, development funding and mining projects.
bitcoin offers a sweeping vista of opportunity to reimagine how the financial system can and should work in the Internet era …
The essay became one of Silicon Valley’s earliest full-throated institutional cases for bitcoin.
bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy.
The ornate line became the signature rhetoric of the corporate bitcoin-treasury movement.
It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.
Satoshi understood that censorship-resistant money would attract political scrutiny long before bitcoin became a policy issue.
I’m a believer. I’m one of the few standing before you today from a large financial services company that has not given up on digital currencies.
Fidelity’s early commitment preceded mainstream institutional custody and exchange-traded bitcoin products.
Almost no one uses bitcoin for payments. They use it more as an alternative to gold, really. It’s a speculative store of value.
Powell’s description helped move the mainstream argument from “failed currency” toward “speculative digital gold.”
In my view, digital currencies are nothing but an unfounded fad (or perhaps even a pyramid scheme) …
After talking with his son, Marks wrote that his first dismissal had been too sweeping, although he remained skeptical of speculative buying.
It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
One of Satoshi’s rare remarks about adoption, written when bitcoin had almost no market or public audience.
The certainty, not always the concern
bitcoin’s critics often identified genuine risks. Their weakest calls treated those risks as proof that the network could not survive, mature or enter regulated finance.
“It will end” failed first.
bitcoin kept producing blocks through bans, exchange failures, crashes and political attacks.
“Serious finance won’t touch it” collapsed next.
Fidelity, BlackRock, public companies and regulated exchanges built around bitcoin exposure and custody.
Actions became more revealing than old quotes.
Fink, Trump, Dalio, Dimon and Marks all softened, reversed or participated through institutions after earlier attacks.
The hard questions did not disappear.
Volatility, scams, custody risk and mining energy remain fair subjects. bitcoin surviving them is different from disproving them.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3DpbAowDFA&w=640&h=360]
