I want to talk about how the way people with power such as CEO’s, head of states and other important people in along with the media are affecting the way Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are being received by the mainstream public, who are not into these cryptocurrencies. One of the examples of people with such power is Jamie Dimon from JPMorgan Chase & co who recently made some really interesting statements. Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/13/bitcoin-fraud-jp-morgan-cryptocurrency-drug-dealers. This is a review by The Guardian on an interview with Jamie Dimon about Bitcoin.
As what often happens when an important person with some sort of power talks about this subject, the media made a lot of attention to this statement. This also happened to Jamie Dimon’s statements which a lot of people who are not into Bitcoin see as facts. For example, Jamie Dimon said: “the digital currency was only fit for use by drug dealers, murderers and people living in places such as North Korea”. This are some outrageous statements that would require a lot of evidence to back it up, but if all the research that is done on this is yet to support this and in fact is saying that cryptocurrencies are rarely used for funding terrorism. the Foreign Affairs newspaper recently wrote: “the use of digital currencies among terrorists is not widespread”. This is due to several reasons most importantly is that Bitcoin as of right now is not liquid enough to use, but also because cash is easier to use for terrorist groups.
But of course there will always be people using something in a negative way and in this case the pros definitely outweigh the cons. But because the general population is not well informed about this subject they will think that almost everything the media and especially people in a position of power have to say about it. This will create a large part of the population, the one who is not correctly informed, with a negative view of these currencies although they can bring great prosperity and huge improvements in privacy for everyone, but all the mainstream public knows is that this is being used for illegal purposes such as funding terrorism. This is one of the ways how the media influences the view of the population on one certain subject very easily and this is why everyone should be cautious when reading news made by the media to inform us about new technologies and recent developments.
Another example of something Dimon said is: “Bitcoin is a fraud that will ultimately blow up”. First of all, this is an outrageous statement to make about something which is this unpredictable and also because there is so much debate about this. At this time China and Lithuania are working on their own blockchain technologies, which is the backbone of Bitcoin, while other countries are trying to regulate it, and some are even going as far as straight out banning it. However, Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are still very strong at the moment and they are becoming ever more valuable with the market cap of these currencies being estimated around 300 billion USD and ever increasing!
So what are your thoughts on the way the media is portraying Bitcoin and do you think it is keeping away the mainstream public from joining in on this shift in the monetary system?
