2013-04-03 The Guardian Confused about Bitcoin? It's 'the Harlem Shake of...'

[nootropicsforbitcoins]

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

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[jwzguy]

This is just an ugly friend type thing to make other articles look good, right?

LOL. It's nice when a dip to yesterday's prices (especially during significant problems with our largest exchange) is considered a crash. Oh noes! We're only up 1000% from a few months ago!

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

My guess is that the article had to be turned in at 5pm, and the author forgot about it until 4:55pm.  It truly reads like it was researched and written to meet a deadline in 5 minutes.

Good reminder why only thing worth reading in The Guardian is the sports section.

[Kazu]

When reading an article that calls something "the Harlem Shake" of pretty much anything, you instantly know youre being trolled.

[Timo Y]

Don't even know what a Harlem Shake is, but this must be one of the most badly written articles I've ever seen published in the Guardian.  An 8-year old writing a school essay about Bitcoin could have done a better job.

[BkkCoins]

Another idiotic article from them. This guywoman can't even get the name of the wallet service right, and seems to imply that it's the only or primary one. Crikey, this is just dog food.

[TheKoziTwo]

This is comedy gold, I don't think I have laughed so hard while reading an article. A few quotes:

"Despite the hype, Bitcoin is used by very few people. It is not a legitimate currency just because it had a bubble"

"it is too complicated to buy and maintain for people who aren't online 18 hours a day" 

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

"They're designed to be the favored by people who want to do things on the internet without getting caught. " 

[Kazu]

"it is too complicated to buy and maintain for people who aren't online 18 hours a day" 

No seriously, what exactly does it take to "maintain" bitcoins. About the same amount of effort it takes to "maintain" your Word Documents or any other thing thats on the hard disk, potentially less because you can use cloud services like blockchain.info. You don't see everybody running around with typewriters because Word Documents are so hard to maintain.

[TraderTimm]

This was so horrible I had to post something:

The muppetry exhibited in this article is beyond farcical - it plunges to the depths of the murky Thames, rooting about in the muck and mire.

Amir Taaki is not the "project leader" of anything but his own projects. The Bitcoin Foundation is the official core development team. A few seconds on your favorite search engine would've confirmed that.

Bitcoin was created in the spirit of monetary freedom, not subversion as the article snarkily implies. Freedom from those that have flawed monetary policies, freedom from the meddling of politicians and central bankers. I'm sure quite a few in the EU would love their interference to stop.

It isn't "created by hackers", it is given value by verification processors who work on cryptographic proof-of-work problems which ensures bitcoins can't be counterfeited. It is controlled by algorithms, not punters in basements.

(How bitcoin works: http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/06Bitcoin-1338412974774.jpg)

The rest of your article throws bitcoin in with the pound, dollar and yen as a way to deal in 'shady' markets. Oh my, people trade with cash and buy things governments don't want them to? Oh, the horror! Welcome to reality, where drugs and other consumables are purchased with a tenner crossing palms.

This isn't unique to bitcoin. But of course in your mad dash to cover bitcoin with the most 'dirt' possible, you feel the need to mention the frailties of third-party services (thanks, we already know about that) and somehow infer that it means bitcoin is frail. The protocol hasn't been breached, just some badly configured services.

In short, your poorly researched (assuming you did any, which I doubt) tar-and-feather 'hit' piece on bitcoin only exposes the weakest link - the author that had the audacity to publish it in the first place.

Try to uphold some kind of professional standard, will you? It's awfully embarrassing to see in public.

Who knows if they'll let it sit there - I couldn't hold back my disgust for this horrible author or her view on bitcoin.

[Kazu]

I think they write these articles just so they can get a whole bunch of views from people in the Bitcoin community while not endorsing it.

1) If they don't write about Bitcoin at all, they are losing viewers.
2) If they don't take a stance on Bitcoin but write about it, they'll have to actually do some research which apparently is too hard, or else they won't have anything to write.
3) If they take a positive stance toward Bitcoin, they'll be portrayed as "radical" by the rest of the media, much of which is controlled by banksters (see CNBC).
4) The only option left is to take an extreme negative stance on bitcoin.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

This was so horrible I had to post something:

TT, thank you again for your continuous efforts correcting idiocy and mediocrity on various websites.