{"id":5290,"date":"2023-01-31T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci02b6302520002417"},"modified":"2023-01-31T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T13:00:00","slug":"four-ways-not-to-attack-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/four-ways-not-to-attack-bitcoin","title":{"rendered":"The Four Worst Ways To Attack Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

This is an opinion editorial by Joakim Book, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and contributor to Bitcoin Magazine, HumanProgress.org and the Mises Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n

Finding fault with Bitcoin and Bitcoiners is easy. Every schmuck, stick, know-it-all pundit, wiseass and establishment elite<\/a> has a handful of complaints readily available. Bitcoin uses too much electricity; its fixed money supply schedule makes interventions from a benevolent central bank impossible; it doesn\u2019t have enough inflation for a growing economy; it is used by pesky criminals; and its mean, technobabbling<\/a> users hurt my brittle feelings.<\/p>\n

The objections get tiresome about as quickly as they get recycled. <\/p>\n

One fantastic example is the doomspeaker economist Nouriel Roubini, known for his bombastic and bearish declarations \u2014 frequently nicknamed<\/a> \u201cDr. Doom\u201d by the financial press. In his own mind, he is merely \u201crealistic,\u201d which every madman would say about himself when queried. In his latest book, \u201cMegathreats: The Ten Trends That Imperil Our Future, And How To Survive Them<\/a>,\u201d he insists that most people overlook something about this infamous nickname:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThose who label me Dr. Doom fail to see that I examine the upside with as much rigor as the downside. Optimists and pessimists both call me contrarian. If I could choose my nickname, Dr. Realist sounds right.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Bitcoin obituaries site 99bitcoins.com lists our beloved economist hater 12 times<\/a>, but Googling finds plenty more Bitcoin denouncements from this outspoken character \u2014 in every outlet that\u2019ll have him, it seems, from Twitter to the Financial Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To Roubini, bitcoin was a bubble in 2013<\/a>, a \u201cPonzi game\u201d and \u201cnot a currency\u201d in 2014<\/a>, a \u201cgigantic speculative bubble\u201d in 2017<\/a>, almost all transactions were fake in 2019<\/a> and, most tastefully, in 2020<\/a> a little bit of everything:<\/p>\n

\n

Bitcoin is NOT a currency: it is not a unit of account, it is not a single numeraire, it is not a scalable means of payments, it is not backed by any asset, it is not legal tender, its price is highly manipulated & thus its partial store of value function is based on nothing.<\/p>\n

— Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) November 9, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n