Would you say this article from the guardian on bitcoin is propagandist?

[notig]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/04/bitcoin-currency-of-vice

Bitcoin currency of vice. Even without doing much research it is relatively easy to prove that the main use of bitcoins isn't drugs. It's as a store of value (like gold). Anyways... if journalists did any research they might find this survey http://spacedruid.com/2013/02/26/the-demographics-of-bitcoin-part-1/ which is actually an attempt at figuring out what bitcoins are used for.

Isn't it funny that mainstream publications can just claim that bitcoin is a currency of vice and that it's mainly used for drugs when they don't even really know that or have evidence to support such statements?

I'm not saying the article is completely inept though.  

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[notig]

reserved

[Mike Christ]

Mainstream news ain't news, it's just fodder.  The dogs need to keep your eyes forward, you know, so you don't stray.  And besides, they get paid either way

[inge]

Illegal things were happening long before the introduction of Bitcoins….The world is not worst, just different.

Regards, Inge

[Merralea]

Yeah, bullshit hitpiece is bullshit.
That said, so is the survey. The selection bias is too powerful, and while 100 is enough to be statistically relevant...still not enough to be convincing.

[bitlancr]

Lots of people liken these early days of Bitcoin to the early days of the net, but I see it more like the early days of the industrial revolution. It's raw, unfettered capitalism - and that's what scares people. 

[franky1]

nice reply on the comments section of the newspapers page. just a shame the guardian will never read it

This news paper is digging up old news from 2011 when the only use of Bitcoins was the black market. i guess their researcher needs to prepare his resignation letter sooner then expected.
Bitcoin is used NOW! globally for THOUSANDS of legit businesses as oppose to the one 'dodgy' website known as silk road.
Saying that the whole half a billion dollars worth of market capital is silk road, is like saying the whole of Norway is an underground currency based purely on one street of one town of Norway where there is known to be a couple drug-lords hanging around.

Get out of the sheep cycle of propaganda and actually do some proper research 'Guardian'.
bitcoinstore.com
wordpress.com
www.grippit.co.uk
www.xecnet.com
That's just a couple. how here is a bigger list (but by no means complete)
www.spendbitcoins.com/places

I have personally never used drugs and those within the user base of Bitcoin I chat to also don't venture into silk road. you are comparing it like the dollar use to be back in the days of the wild west. when money was only good to spend in saloons on beer and prostitutes. Yes that's right Bitcoin has grown into a proper currency in under 2 years of its 4 year life thus far, where it took dollar 100 years to get to this point.

Now imagine the future of Bitcoin

[Lethn]

Let them print whatever they want, in the end, mathematics has only one answer.

[tvbcof]

I make it a point to rarely pay any attention to mainstream sources of information.  Since doing this most of my investments have payed out quit well.

I don't think that it is much of a secret that many, and possibly most, editors and a lot of reports are subsidized in some ways by by corp/gov and it reflects in the information quality which these sectors produce.  It also explains the deep hatred for the few who probably don't play ball.  Like Assange or Palast.  globalresearch.ca remains one of my favorite go-to sites for non-aligned reporting and analysis.

[Lethn]

Don't forget about Kim Dotcom but yeah, ignoring mainstream news like the Guardian etc. is one of the best things you could ever do.

[whitenight639]

I cant even read or watch Main stream media nowadays, I get my news mainly from Russia Today and sometimes financials from bloomberg and AP.


I think it was in the gaurdian that I read a hit piece on electronic cigarettes and I couldn't read anymore i looked up the writer and he clearly had links with big pharma, there just laughable.

[Carlton Banks]

It's a bit of a strange change of tune from the Guardian: they introduced me to the notion of an internet based currency in a piece I was linked to well over 5 years ago now. Clearly bitcoin wasn't what they had in mind! I always take comfort from how absurdly you can caricature these hitpieces. "Shady new currency buys drugs and murder" should have been their headline, lol. I think there's more than enough wrongdoing taking place using paper currencies, this makes any and all previous moralising from the Guardian look like pure posturing. Bitcoin solves a great deal of what they rail against, and they're appearing to be taking a Bank of England position, politically. The shame.

[Chief Satangkai]

"Unless you're a major tech geek or/and a regular patron of the shadowy computer underworld"

Hey, That´s me! 

[edmundedgar]

I don't see what everybody's moaning about.

The piece looks fair to me. They say that Bitcoin was first used on a large scale as a proper currency (as opposed to something for people to speculate on) by the Silkroad people, the next big use-case was gambling, and now it's spreading into regular online commerce. Anyone disagree with any of that?

The only bit I'd quibble with is that the writer doesn't quite seem to be able to get their head around the fact that it's a currency not a company, and insist on talking about Bitcoins as "stock" and Bitcoin partnering with a bank. But give these people a break - genuinely disruptive technologies like this take a bit of getting used to.

[auzaar]

Article seems very genuine it has gems like "There are currently 10.8m Bitcoins in the system, and this will cap out at 21m coins by the year 2140, according to market research firm ConvergEx"

[scribe]

This felt like one of the better pieces of coverage, IMHO - the Guardian audience will most likely have heard of Bitcoin vaguely, and probably in the context of SR, so good to see someone making counter points.

It's all a bit like when people started using email or Twitter, and media were writing pieces for readers who couldn't get their heads round new ways of doing useful stuff. Remember that Sun piece on the www being a fad?

The Guardian are probably the mainstream uk newspaper most likely to be dabbling with Bitcoin right now, even if just to see how it actually works.

[EskimoBob]

Article is not that bad but the example they start out with, points to a much bigger "problem" - those "bad drugs" are as abused as sugar, fat, alcohol and other " good drugs" Fix the law and drug dealers are out of business.
 
BTW, Bitcoin is not a currency. Is Master Card or Visa a currency? Is PayPal a currency? Dwolla? No, they are not. Those are expensive and slow (to merchant, btw!) means to transfer fiat form one place to another.
Bitcoin, Litecoin, PPCoin and so on are all just value transfer systems. I know, it sounds cool to call it currency but it's wrong and if you really think about it, it is a huge PR fuck up for bitcoin and all the other coins alike.

Go an tell a merchant that you have a new currency blaa blaa blaa. The moment you mention "new currency", merchants mind goes blank and he starts to feel burning PITA and little bubbles emerge from his head  .• ° o O (fees, exchange rates, volatility, risk this and risk that aaaarrrhhh... fk NO! NOOO!)
Go and tell him, you have a new and secure and super cheap payment system (value transfer systems) and he is probably going to listen to you a bit longer... until you get to that volatility part

[xxjs]

Article is not that bad but the example they start out with, points to a much bigger "problem" - those "bad drugs" are as abused as sugar, fat, alcohol and other " good drugs" Fix the law and drug dealers are out of business.
 
BTW, Bitcoin is not a currency. Is Master Card or Visa a currency? Is PayPal a currency? Dwolla? No, they are not. Those are expensive and slow (to merchant, btw!) means to transfer fiat form one place to another.
Bitcoin, Litecoin, PPCoin and so on are all just value transfer systems. I know, it sounds cool to call it currency but it's wrong and if you really think about it, it is a huge PR fuck up for bitcoin and all the other coins alike.

Go an tell a merchant that you have a new currency blaa blaa blaa. The moment you mention "new currency", merchants mind goes blank and he starts to feel burning PITA and little bubbles emerge from his head  .• ° o O (fees, exchange rates, volatility, risk this and risk that aaaarrrhhh... fk NO! NOOO!)
Go and tell him, you have a new and secure and super cheap payment system (value transfer systems) and he is probably going to listen to you a bit longer... until you get to that volatility part

Bitcoin is currency
Bitcoin is money

Bitcoin price in dollars may be somewhat volatile now, but so are other currencies like yen. Dollar price in blue barrels of oil is certainly volatile nowadays. There is nothing intrinsic to bitcoin that makes it specially volatile.

What a merchant may say is totally irrelevant. Are we not all merchants?

[bitlancr]

BTW, Bitcoin is not a currency. Is Master Card or Visa a currency? Is PayPal a currency? Dwolla? No, they are not. Those are expensive and slow (to merchant, btw!) means to transfer fiat form one place to another.
Bitcoin, Litecoin, PPCoin and so on are all just value transfer systems.

Value Transfer System = Medium of Exchange = Currency ?