TL;DR
Why do so many ‘normies’ have a contempt for crypto? I have explored some motivations, ranging from conflicting interests to a distaste for the casino aspect of crypto. The undercurrent beneath many objections seems to be a disagreement about how much the traditional financial system can be trusted. Critics of crypto have more trust in the current system and think that crypto could undermine it, which they don’t like.
Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini called Bitcoin the ‘mother of all bubbles.’
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, agreed and called it it worse than the tulip bulbs, referring to the 17th-century Dutch tulip mania.
Jack Bogle, the late founder of Vanguard advised investors to ‘avoid Bitcoin like the plague’.
Of course, we reserve a special mention for the colorful derogatory term Warren Buffett’ used, his infamous ‘Rat poison squared’.
The Spectrum from Mild Contempt to Vitriol
Of course, the vitriol is loudest in the depths of a bear market. ‘The apparent stabilisation of bitcoin’s value is likely to be an artificially induced last gasp before the crypto-asset embarks on a road to irrelevance.’ As could be read in a column by European Central Bank employees. To which Dutch Financial Times journalist Joost van Kuppeveld added: ‘and we won’t give it a proper burial but will let it rot’.
While such a comment may be an outlier, you might recognize it as a more extreme version of the kind of response you would have experienced with friends, family or your hairdresser. They no doubt have expressed it in a less vitriolic way, in a mumbled ‘Oh dear’ maybe, or a smirk. In the depths of the bear market, it might have taken the form of a gentle ‘I told you so – but you can still be redeemed. Just sell the orange coin and return to our circle of normies.’
No, thank you. But this all still leaves us wondering, where does this contempt spring from? Let’s try to come up with a few reasons.
1. Conflicting Interests
In the early 20th century, automobiles were ridiculed and even actively opposed by the incumbent horse industry. This ad shows scaremongering by a horse carriage company.
It’s no big surprise that a central banker won’t be first in line to support a newcomer who disrupts the industry’s raison d’etre. Maybe this explains why a person such as Alex de Vries, employed by the Dutch National Bank, is such a fervent anti-crypto publicist, going as far as quoting dubious research about Bitcoin’s environmental impact.
True, but still. There are plenty of Bitcoin and crypto critics who aren’t employed by incumbents and still are violently opposed to it.
So, let’s dig a bit more for other explanations.
2. Obnoxious Behavior by Bitcoin Maxis
Not every Bitcoiner is as mild as Satoshi who once sighed on Bitcoin Talk email forum in 2010: ‘If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.’
Unlike gentle soul Satoshi, a certain brand of Bitcoin Maximalists can be very annoying with their lines such as ‘Have fun being poor’, and ‘Cry harder’. A subset of Bitcoiners subscribes to an extreme version of libertarianism, where the role of the government is minimal or even non-existent. While defendable, it’s an extreme view that won’t garner support among large swaths of the…
Erik started as a freelance writer around the time Satoshi was brewing on the whitepaper.
As a crypto investor, he is class of 2020. More of a holder than a trader, but never shy to experiment with new protocols.
