Bitcoin Forum

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22026961
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/bitcoin-currency-bubble-crash-not-rocking-financial-markets

This reminds me of 18+ years ago, when the public disregarded internet geeks by labelling them "hackers" or perverts of some sort anyway.

Why so much hatred? What do you think?

UPDATE: more negative press coming today

http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2013/04/05/bitcoin-bubble/?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29
http://news.discovery.com/tech/bitcoin-currency-attacked-130405.htm
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-04/sorry-libertarians-history-shows-bitcoin-isn-t-the-future.html

the last one being the most informed article.

1) Ignorance
2) Selling newspapers
3) Jealousy
4) Inability to accept new things
5) Lazy, rushed "journalism"

Let's face it. Internet killed journalism anyway. Perhaps its just a revenge  job.

Perhaps all the baby boomer talking heads and analysts who have been making fools of themselves on TV this past week, should try to remember their youth, and specifically this piece of advice:

The people who own the press don't like a currency that is out of their control. They can't just print more bitcoin, and tax/steal (Yes Cyrpus was pure theft, not a tax) bitcoins from private citizens when it suits them.

I always laugh when I see people implying that government "regulation" is a good thing. Because of "regulation" on paypal, someone can reverse a transaction even when I have sent them the item. Because of "regulation", everyone from MI6 to the local council can spy on my financial records without a warrant. Because of "regulation", governments are able to steal money from private citizens and call it a "tax".

Every time Bitcoin goes up in price there is a new wave of FUD.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mahatma Gandh

BTW, nice quote n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU

Not sure if it's FUD or just improper research/ignorance.

Bitcoin is difficult to understand.

From the Guardian Article : " A network of tech-savvy programmers – okay, call them hackers – work on secret algorithms to create and release Bitcoins at their own discretion. "

Really ?  I can release bitcoins at my own discretion ?   HAHAHAHAHA

They just jelly of our mad swag.

Seriously though, that Guardian article is incredibly biased, even if it is a 'Comment is Free' piece.

It's what we call 'laptop journalism' - lazy and uninformed writing. Some people just enjoy slandering others from a perceived position of authority, and I would guess that this is behind the amateur opinion piece that you linked. It's part of the stigma against spending all your time on the Internet at large (why??).

Its only fraud if you lie about it. As long as the customer realizes that he is buying into a fractional reserve system and does so voluntarily than there is no fraud involved there. notice i am certainly not talking about any monetary system that exists today but rather an imaginary free market based fractional reserve system.

Heidi Moore is seriously stupid. And I'm not judging it just from her looks...

The ignorance and lies in these articles are bordering on dangerous considering these 'journalists' are supposed to be teaching the general population about other important matters like war and economy. The BBC article says the value dropped "sharply" after the MtGox issue, yet purposely doesn't tell you how much it dropped by because they know full well it wasn't that significant. Bitch please we have dropped tend of dollars in seconds before, we can handle it.

I am and she's still stupid.
 ;D

That's on the BBC Technology pages - no-one reads that crap. The BBC is renowned for knowing fuck-all about technology. They've been on a massive dumbing-down campaign every since they foisted Mr Blobby on us. Everything is pitched at the level you'd need to explain to your senile, drunken aunt. They flirted with the idea of games reviews about 10 years ago and gave up when they couldn't find a writer capable of knowing his arse from his Nintendo.

Nevertheless, some sheep will read it and learn a Pavlovian response: media says "Bitcoin", you say "Crash".


I hardly call $147 to $108 a crash. In a crash I expect to lose money and for the price not to bounce back with 24 hours :p

It will get worse! It will get better! It will be one hell of a wild ride :)

I think the BBC article is pretty straight.
The guardian one otoh made me cry and i'm pretty sure some puppies died of it at some point.

Ha, how deliberate was the use of the Wall St image on the BBC article? Trying to force an association that doesn't even exist. Sad that it will probably work.

I welcome some FUD, might be able to cool this off a little. I am all for going to gazillions, lets just pick a sane pace though. Exchanges can't keep up with demand :) So bring on more uninformed FUD :)

FUD is good. Success is easily judged with bitcoin (look at price. look how widespread adoption is.) The more FUD you spread about it, the more stupid you look if/when it is successful. People need to learn to stop getting their info on what's going on from sources like this anyway.

That being said; BITCOIN IS THE HARLEM SHAKE OF CURRENCY!! ;D

Its unbelievable what some people see fit to print in major news organizations. When we hit 1000 I'll bump this and send these people a quiet note about the silly currency they reported on.

It's all due to the high price.  Triple digits will turn away many people.
Switch to mBTC and people will jump in.  Or at least, there will be a lot less bad press, and price will be clear to go to 0.2$, 0.3$, ...  and easily to the dollar per mBTC.

All it need to take is MtGox to show mBTC and others will follow.

It really doesn't matter!

The gameplan should be to ignore everyone and just get on with it.

Its only the ones who are frightened who name drop their competitors, the real winners don't need to know who came second!

The launch of the internet on to the public was very similar, with every press monkey looking for stories of dodgy dealings on the new fangled interweb thingy!

Pedophiles were the creation of the media and other dark forces wanting to have an excuse to monitor the internet - before 1994, pedophiles were just dirty old men who hung around parks inviting kids to play with puppies and sharing their sweets!  Everyone know they existed, but the threat was contained!

Bitcoin will get the same treatment, and many people will fall for it. The best thing to do is to explain that nobody in power likes bitcoin because it proves that government are stealing from their own people by devaluing and inflating their own currencies.  Want to bypass that?  Use a currency their can't mess with!

However, don't get hung up about other people calling the currency crap - it doesn't matter - just let them carry on and concentrate on living a crypto coin life!

"An obscure digital currency – used mostly for running drugs and laundering money for dictators –" LOL, yea I'm sure all the dictators in the world are sitting in front of their computer, checking out Bitcoin charts, and wondering how they can launder their money in an ecosystem that's smaller than the amount of money they spend in a week.

The Guardian article is really a shame for this newspaper. Used to be a good-quality one...

Why suddenly 20% daily move (third one in a month of March alone) is a historic crash? These "journalists" don't even bother looking at the chart for a second. Pathetic attempt.

The Guardian should apology for publishing the Heidi Moore's article.

FUD in the media is good.

Like others have said before me, when mainstream media starts praising Bitcoin is when we should start to get worried about bubbles.

FUD is made by people pissed off by not buying when it was low, or who sold thinking the bubble would burst (which has obviously not occurred) and want to jump back in ;D

WTF? Why would a dictator want to 'launder money?' They are the ones that define 'money laundering' in the first place.

OK, I hold so.
Thanks ElectricMucus.  ;D

There has never been, and there will never be a good reason to sell BTC...even if it says so in the small print.

At this stage I no longer care about stupid reporting. Bitcoin has succeed in finding a path to the main stream. Players with strong hands, deep pockets, and keen minds are moving into bitcoin and some sophomoric reported is not going to dissuade them.

Let the fools talk and suppress the price a little longer. More cheep coins for us, right?

Pretty much.
The level of lol from the bears and press is reaching epic proportions.

Won't sell even if it drops to $50. Freedom is a beautiful thing.

I knew I should've stopped reading that Guardian article the moment I read the title. *facepalm*

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2013/3/22/1363962767702/Bitcoin-developer-Amir-Ta-015.jpg
The first time I'd prefer to see Bruce Wagner's face.

+1 If this is not FUD I don't know what is.

At least the majority of commenters are pointing out Heidi's a hack.  If everyone was screaming in agreement, I'd be a saaaad panda.

http://southparkstudios.mtvnimages.com/images/south_park/episode_thumbnails/s03e06_480.jpg

FUD is working. the masses are going to get their information from news, they don't have time to research this and that.
the illuminati is working with the press to destroy bitcoin, we can't do anything now.

I don't think the Russian mafia cares of the FUD, nor do the corrupted Chinese diplomats. Because so far, Bitcoin as a money laundering method works wonders.

While money laundering is a questionable/despicable use, I speculate that in short term the price will be sustained by it, thus counterbalancing the bad press effect - and geez we got loads more bad press today  :-\

Bitcoin is nowhere near large enough to be useful for money laundering in the amounts these people have. It wouldn't be difficult to track 10% of the entire money supply moving around no matter how you divided it, unless you were willing to wait a year or two to get your money back.

First they ignore you.
Then they try to fight you.
Then you win.

This will not work so easily. With pedophiles and child porn it is easy to reach consensus amongst the masses, there is a strong emotional component to this topic, everybody loves children and hates when bad things are done to them.

But with bitcoin you can't do that so easily, nobody loves bankers, it would need massive reprogramming of public opinion over many decades to reach the point where people would actually truly *believe* that bitcoins were inherently bad and trying to f*ck up a central banker and his ponzi scheme would be considered immoral.

This is the best thread I've read in a while

Have a confession to make though, I don't know what FUD actually means. lol

I described that Guardian article in my blog as 'probably the worst piece of journalism I've ever read'

Haven't read all the ones in the update though.#

I LOVE that Ghandi quote, so true!

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

Or you just call everyone using it baby-killing armed holdup drug addicts and associate them.

When BTCs get really really big, they're going to associate it with terrorism, mark my words.

They already are, at least the press is. The government itself is too, to a certain extent. Read the fincen documents. A rough paraphrase: People or organisations who sell or buy decentralized currencies for fiat must get documents that can uniquely identify each and every user and provide said documemts to the gpvernment whenever the government wants so the government can protect society from terrorists, illegal weapon transfers, and other illegal activities.

"Terrorism" is nowadays the same as witchery was in Medieval ages. Just an excuse for expropriation.