Bitcoin Forum

I keep seeing the news that "Bitcoin is used for drugs", "Bitcoin is primarily used by thieves" pretty much every other day. The well informed people know that it isnt true but the mainstream media's perception stays the same. How do we change it and can we?

People who are going to be sheep and believe anything they hear on the internet, or on the TV, or from their government and not do their own research are going to keep doing so until something drastic changes their mindset. The fact is, stupid/lazy people are going to be stupid/lazy for as long as possible.

I don't think the mindset is that now, however. Maybe 3 or 4 years go, you ask anyone about bitcoin and you'll be greeted with responses like "isn't that a ponzi", or "oh, isn't that the new currency that is funding terrorism/drugs?" However, in the last couple of years, there has surprisingly been a lot of positive coverage about crypto-currencies and it's lead to a change in public perception and is prompting a lot of people to actually read about the technology before brushing it off.

It's really hard to do this, because you'd need to change the mainstream media themselves:

1. They often take money or are owned by the elite, and the elite is not interested in seeing Bitcoin succeed.
2. Mainstream media love negative news, they know that they generate much more clicks than positive news.

But if you want to cover Bitcoin in a way that could appeal to everyone, you can avoid saying that it's a tool for dismantling fiat money and banks, and instead say that it's a currency with low fees, global transactions without borders, instant microtransactions (LN), etc.

I just read an article today about the same. All I had to do was google Bitcoin and there it was. "Bitcoin is Not as Popular as it Used to be, But Thieves Still Love it" This was the title of it. Which is that triggered me into this topic.

It might be difficult to do this since people already had this idea that crypto is being used in the dark web for drugs, terrorism, scam, and etc because users are anonymous.

In time, people will find out the convenience of cryptocurrency as a whole. The problem with media is, it is too powerful that even false information or news can convince and influence people's ideas or perceptions about things.

Hi there,

I think change is already in progress.
I.e. yesterday, the ARD - a german-state-owned, major TV broadcaster (like BBC) - posted a very positive article on their webside.
No mentioning of money laundring or bitcoin gangster stuff, instead it was described as a very serious store of value, very comparable to gold.

I think this year will have a major impact on the future of crypo currencies, more and more people will respect and accept this.

But a "full adoption/acceptance" will take more than a decade from now, just think about the broad scepticism towards the internet (in the beginning), amazon, tesla or renewable energy
and so much more new technologies which where (or will be) game changing...
Maybe this is because of the demographic situation in most western countries (major part of the population is 50+)

But in mid- to longterm its inevitable!

This is the mentioned article;.
https://boerse.ard.de/anlageformen/kryptowaehrungen/bitcoin-etabliert-sich-als-krisenwaehrung100.html

The only ones that makes it worst are bias media around the world. The good sides if the coin is somewhat drag to one illegal transaction of a user of bitcoin network, and thus it is worsen by the journalist by somehow sugar coating just to attract readers, despite the fact they are damaging the image of bitcoin and the crypto space.

The best we can do is to give it time to prove them wrong, they will face reality. The piece of eight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar), considered as the currency used by maritime piracy, was finally used internationally by colonies. If I'm correct even the US dollar comes from it, hence the name 'dollar'.

In the beginning, they said Btc is a gadget but now it can challenge institutions they started to see it differently. A problem is Bitcoin is misunderstood from the mass, but it can change the whole economy, it's only a matter to change the mentalities. People believe in capitalism, Bitcoin can make them believe in humanity.

From "In God, we trust" they will change to "In code, we trust" and the media outlet will follow the trend.

Most governments have succeeded in bad-mouthing bitcoin and its goal but we as crypto enthusiasts know perfectly that this is not true so it's incumbent on us to educate people and let them know the real use of bitcoin. Definitely bad and corrupt people have taken advantage of the anonymous feature of bitcoin transactions but we need to make it clear that, this does not define bitcoin.

We can do this if everybody puts a little effort in it and educate people within your own niche.

You probably should ask them whether fiat currencies are used by thieves or not. if they say no, you could get them proofs. I bet you will find alot of them and even those happening on a daily basis.
By the way, I think we have less crime activities on real cryptosphere(decentralized crypto world) than on centralized ones. I believe alot of crime problems in centralized world can be best handled on well decentralized and advanced crypto world.. Who doesn't want truely decentralized, secured, transparent, accountable, , immutable, reputable, privacy/anonymity centered systems? I believe this can be achieved on decentralized crypto.

Not the perception of who uses it but rather what are its proper uses. Information regarding who uses it should actually naturally follow. To be perfectly honest, they're pretty much doing biased reports regarding it, since really? Crypto/Bitcoin being used for illegal activities? Uhm hello? If Crypto was being badmouthed this bad when it came about, why is fiat still standing? Heck, we should've already boycotted it because of the illegal transactions some people/criminals ( ehem, government) do.

It's like the wrong perception where people judge the money from where it came from. If it came from a random citizen, then it's safe, but if it came from a criminal, then it's "illegal". There isn't anything illegal mediums IMO, only illegal methods/ways/paths.

People no longer trust mass media like they used to. When bitcoin started people still trusted them, nowadays a lot of people get their news from the Internet and inherently distrust the mainstream media.

We don't need to change the mainstream media's perception of bitcoin. We only need a few million users and to advance the technology. Since fiat just keeps getting printed and expanded through loans and other debt, and since it's controlled by the banks all it takes is a few mishaps/missteps for people to get fed up with the system and move to crypto.

For example, if you kept your money in crypto, you wouldn't need to worry about unfair civil asset forfeiture as the money could never be spotted by a corrupt local police officer and then used to buy donut making machines or whatever.


In the long term the mainstream media will act as if they were always on our side. Bitcoin is like the Internet. It's a disruptive new technology that will eventually become so mainstream and important to our everyday lives that it will be ridiculous to simply link it to criminality or compare it to a ponzi scheme or dismiss it.


The mainstream media ridiculed the Internet and E-mail as well. I wasn't there for it but you can pull up all the quotes.

^ There is no point for us to change to perspective the mainstream media are trying to show to the mass. The true crypto enthusiasts and the true intelligent viewer are aware of the reality that cryptocurrencies weren't only used for theft or any crime related stuff.
The media has exactly less knowledge about cryptocurrency than us the people who are really involved in the industry. We don't even really need to please anyone or the mass that cryptocurrency isn't used just to do these things. It is their choice to be ignorant, as well if they will believe in the media's statements about cryptocurrency without doing their further research.
Nevertheless, We don't need to change their perception, it wouldn't help us, as well. We don't need to prove anything.

The point of change occurs when thinking about Bitcoin is a way to make daily payments and is frequently used. When people become familiar with something, they appear to formulate motives when that thing is attacked.
The same thing happens with money, but because we use money for a lot of good things. Everyone thinks that the bad people misuse the money, not the money itself.

The general trend of Bitcoin is that it is an excellent opportunity for investors, so the opposite of it is the word bubble.

Such as fake news will exist just to satisfy the urge of the curiosity of the people but if you know how to seek the legitimacy of the news, you will stop watching TV, clicking satire article and focus on finding the truth. It's just funny how they promote goodness on their series yet most of their news was published from out of nowhere to make it look like the outside world is really bad yet they are the ones that are brainwashing the people.

I think it's not new that Bitcoin will always get involved to such events in the mainstream media because this is the trend as of the moment. They like to make it as a hot topic when someone/something is trending that they keep finding faults than finding the good ways.

According to a recent Chainalysis report, only 0.08% of all received crypto was coming from darknet markets.

In all cases of Bitcoin or FIAT currency, good and bad things can be done, the greatest crimes have been planned and executed with FIAT money. Now for many the biggest culprit of crimes is Bitcoin, and it is not so.

I think that each technological tool can be used for good or bad depending on the hands in which it is handled. In fact some time ago thanks to Bitcoin, they managed to dismantle a children's traffic business on the Dark Web, that's a great thing, if crime can be attacked using Blockchain and Bitcoin.

The best way to change it is to present them with facts but mainstream media have their own agenda in everything they do. Either they support a political party or a bank that is their partner or shareholder.

The facts are: fiat money is mostly used by drug addicts and thieves. How many crimes arountd the world involve Bitcoin and how many fiat money? Not a minute passes by without someone being robbed of their money somewhere.

By being sincere as a Crypto evangelist.  Portraying good image when dealing with people on bitcoin and every sphere of life.
Also tell people that Bitcoin and Blockchain innovation could do to banks what mobile phones did to utility poles.
Cryptographic forms of money can become units of account just if there is an amicable and favorable administrative condition.
It is fiat cash that is the best social test on humankind, Bitcoin is simply a techno-response to that.

We can't, unfortunately.

As long as mainstream media is controlled by people who care less about true journalism and honest-to-goodness reporting, we won't be seeing news that are true and are really happening on some disruptive tech that challenges the current system.

No matter how 'clean' bitcoin becomes, the mainstream media will always tag it as something that is connected with drug dealers, hitmen and other nefarious people. Even if the whole world uses bitcoin in the future, it will always have its tainted history somewhere on a newspaper or an article.

We should continue on sharing experiences and how bitcoin changed our lives in a good terms. I think they get the idea of "bitcoin being used in bad things" in such website like deep web and etc. Seek knowledge first before making a conclusion because you don't know that everyone that read your false statement will believe in you. You're fooling people with that, you disgust people who want to use bitcoin so that they have a great future for themselves. You can't rob a digital currency, it is only possible when you got hacked by an anonymous using your wallet. But in thieves? fiat currency are the only vulnerable on that kind of situation. Know first the advantages of bitcoin and do not share any bad information that isn't true.

We can't.Bitcoin is really used by the criminals.Fiat is used by the criminals as well,but nobody is talking about it.Only simple minded people care about the mainstream media nowadays.What you call "mainstream media" is just a propaganda machine that serves the rich and powerful elite.Just ignore all the news about bitcoin and move on.This topic has been discussed 100 times here.It's pointless to continue with the same questions.

You can of course change everything but you need to have resources for this.Media,Television, Radio,to create a positive image of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the subconscious of people.All these tools are available to the government of any countries, so you need to influence them.

"Bitcoin is used for drugs" is a popular opinion among people having no idea about cryptocurrency and its fundamental purposes. I'm not saying that it is how Bitcoin represented in mass media.
Only time will help to change it.

In order to provide changes to the system or the way how people look at cryptocurrency mainly influenced by the mainstream media, we need to understand that each one of us has the capability to provide our influence because of the other platforms such as social media, and mostly, internet. We all know how powerful mass media such as television is, but as of today, they are not the only entity that could impact the world greatly, if we could start in our selves to utilize cryptocurrency in the perfect way possible that we can, we can change the perspective that people have about it in the first place.

Basically that's what the media can do. They can manipulate people's mindset by giving one-sided news and update to show that most cryptocurrency related issues are all about illegal activities, and we know that media can be controlled by the government themselves. If they really want to give bad image to bitcoin, they can easily do that using mass media.

Although part of it was true and we can't deny that. Decentralized cryptocurrency such as bitcoin is common for illegal transactions just to avoid leaving traces. That's the negative side of bitcoin that we cannot erase. And I think that's also normal. Illegal transactions are also happening with the use of fiat.

The thing to change their perception towards bitcoin, is to give them awareness and knowledge that bitcoin isn't just about illegal things. We can also do that by using media, although there's a lack of support, media isn't just limited to tv or what, we can use our social media to educate and correct their wrong perceptions. We can do various ways to change their minds only if we're eager to do it.

It's very difficult to influence media, specially mainstream media.
They really like to share bad news like that drug dealers paid for drugs with btc and of course people like to read such news.
We can't change bad news but can try to create and spread more good and positive news about crypto to the media.
In my country, Croatia we are lucky because recently Croatian Post, in cooperation with one private company,  offered crypto exchange to their users in all main post offices in the country.
Such news have power to change public opinion about crypto and can influence media  
We need more such news.

Not every news about cryptocurrency published by mainstream media are negative. They also do informative piece such as this one https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/965220728755847168

The bigger issue here are the opinionated and self-proclaimed "crypto experts" hired or invited by mainstream media for interviews. They love publishing statements of guys like Peter who knows little about bitcoin.

Not exactly. It's the people who are consciously or subconsciously hooked to these negative news. The mainstream media knows it and they will keep feeding them those types of news.

We can't, sadly.
Everyone has their own perception about certain things and there's nothing we could do about it.
Even outside crypto, there are contributions to a certain social groups and do you think you can trust those contributions?
I even remembered back in the day that Bitcoin was used by a marketer ( I don't really remember the specialization of that person) to make a ponzi scheme.

Bitcoin being used by criminals was my first thought before I started investing into it. Turns out I was wrong due to a friend of mine that proved me wrong.

Media is actually responsible for spreading any kind of news. Media is most useful for the citizens of each country because they come to know about the ups and downs been faced in real life. Also not each of the news shared by media might be true but it has some weightage which makes people believe them. These news platforms also have a lot of traffic which means a lot of people might depend on media for their investments.

Considering for the start of the bitcoin's career, we have seen that the media as well as the government are hardly in favor of bitcoins so they would never stop spreading the negativity about them globally. I am pleased to see that your country is spreading some positive news which should bring some positive revolution into the career of bitcoins and blockchain.

why not   ? you can change it if you will do something like forming a group and then make an advoacy spreading positive words around the web and also offline in regards to btc  . in that way many people will believe that btc is not bad   .

those people later on will know the truth and will only ignore negative speculations  . sometimes media are only being paid to publish false news but we can also counter it by paying other media to publish only the truth 

There is a discussion here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221792.0), from which it is actually very easy to see how a so-called journalist who uses this kind of research for another public call of Bitcoin as a tool used by criminals. It's not really about the percentage, it could even be 0.01%, but it is important to display Bitcoin in the worst possible light whether it is illegal transactions or the destruction of the environment by mining.

Mainstream media is nothing but the tools of the richest people in the world who shape public opinion through it. The media will only change their perception if they receive orders from those who own them.

In my country half of the mainstream media is owned by the government and the other half by the opposition. People in my country are aware that most information telecasted by the mainstream media is paid information. Hence they watch it but they never believe in it.

On the other hand social media spreads like wildfire, it is the best place to spread a genuine news as people to people voices are more heard. Therefore we should concentrate more on social media.

Do we need to change it? I don't think so. You can compare with the utilization of money fiat, how much transaction who made for illegal transaction? Yeah there are a lot and it is commonly used.

That we should change is our mindset to bitcoin, I mean there are a lot of people even its user who doesn't use bitcoin as payment system. They are more prefer to use bitcoin as an investment place only. Because if we use bitcoin as daily transaction and there are a lot of people too who used it as payment system then I believe the news will never come again. Many people there will see bitcoin as money fiat as they use it.

Of course. The easiest thing we do is to educate those closest to us, such as brother or sister, husband or wife, parents, friends, etc. This is more effective in straightening out inappropriate and overly generalized news. Even though there are other functions that are more useful if we can use them well.

How could the so called "well informed" people know it isn't true? It indeed is true but it does not affect us. We all know, bitcoins are been used on a greater extend on most of the illegal platforms which includes deepweb/ darkweb. This is the most horrible side of the internet where all illegal activities like buying/selling drugs, weapons, hiring hackers/hitmans, etc are been provided in exchange with bitcoins.

Why are bitcoins used there? Only because of the natural properties that bitcoins hold there are been used as a medium for payment onto those platforms. Bitcoins are untraceable which makes the illegal people make most use out of them. This should be stopped but the natural properties for bitcoins should never be dissipate.

This is no longer important because btc has proven to be far useful technology than just a digital currency use to sponsor terrorist or as a ponzi scheme, any mainstream media still wrap around this perception does not want to admit the truth or fail to do research even as a media outlet,
Gone where the days when people pay attention to misguided news like this, nowadays, people are more wiser and knows how to seek for their own truth, the media don't have such influence on the minds of people anymore,
Despite some negative news btc keeps coming strong which is why the btc supports keeps increasing. Many mainstream media already changing their perception and i believe the rest will follow in due time.

That's difficult to achieve. Mainstream media is too influential to oppose, and they can manipulate and filter out the news to only publicize those negative circumstances happening in Bitcoin network.

While it's not false, the way they convey such news only and disregard the advantages of Bitcoin is where it goes wrong. And the public, of course, would always almost believe in what they see on these media, unless they have the initiative to do the opposite.

One small way of spreading the benefits and advantages of using bitcoin or crypto is to share the benefits with your family, friends or colleagues that you are experiencing whenever you use crypto for online payment of your bills or paying merchants by crypto. Media is too powerful in instilling the mindset of those who don't know about crypto. So start influencing the mindset of those people who are close to you.

It will require some time and effort to accomplish, predominant press can have a huge impact and change the attitude of others about bitcoin. Particularly these days that individuals get easily believe what they see without analyzing it's genuine purpose. It won't be simple they are playing a huge role and somehow ruin the notoriety of bitcoin on the eyes of peoples and now they are disparaging the abilities of bitcoin without knowing how it change the life of us into a better one.

I don't watch the TV, so I don't hear any of that. People are very different, and unless we are influential people that can appear on the media with opposite claims, I don't think we can change much. At the same time, we can try to change the opinions of the people around us. I am a part-time teacher, and I've mentioned Bitcoin to students during the lessons as well as tried to tell them a bit about it. I am teaching literature, but when we had a lesson on cryptography because of reading E. Poe's "The Gold-Bug", I told students about cryptocurrencies. These kinds of small mentions might bring big changes eventually.

Yes, at the very least the $ comes from the s in PS (from Pesos), and lets not forget those coins were made of actual precious metals (ie. Gold). It probably didn't help that the "golden" age of piracy coincided with the peak of the Spanish empire, looting the Americas and establishing colonies worldwide, until they were eclipsed by the British.

Piece of eight was an interesting name used by English speakers, that's not its name in Spanish.

If anything the USD should be the current preferred money by criminals, since its more or less accepted anywhere, and the farther you use it from the USA (as in diplomatic relations, not physical distance) the less checks origin of funds will have.

I agree with "In code with trust". The USD has that God phrase, however the few humans that control can destroy it. As long as they keep that power, they will keep everyone hostage. Its like they using God as scapegoat for any of their wrongdoings.

Alternative is that longer phrase in that bitcoin 3d rendering: "In cryptography we trust". Well officially the word should be "Trustless" but that needs explaining. "Its a coin that no gov, bank, group or individual can destroy, get it?"

why not  ? we can always change the way they think if we try too  . like you are a teacher and you taught crypto  , that is good  but you  arent force to do it arent you . but you are only being paid to teach while crypto is already a subject on that school   .  when it comes to bad news  , not only on t.v but you can also read them on the internet , social medias etc   . infact its rare to see cryto being aired on t.v compare to online  because its free   .  fake news is also easy to spread then  .

By statistical comparison, much more fiat currency than the cryptocurrency is still used for illicit purposes. So that argument can be used to counterbalance such arguments.

The only way to do it is to start ourselves. If no one believes or clicks this kind of news, then they'll just reduce this kind of articles because media is all about the clicks and everyone loves a shocking news or a negative news which a lot of people clicks.

But let me be honest, this are just pipe dreams. A lot of people just doesn't care much about the news medias is throwing at them. As long as they are entertained, then a lot of people will click even if it there's little to no truth in it. That's the reason why I stop believing it and just use it as some sort of a signal.