Excerpt
I explain what’s slowing down Bitcoin adoption based on my experience speaking with people around the world. I break down how Bitcoin scams, media misinformation, environmental myths, political narratives, and government resistance create distrust and confusion. I also share why honest Bitcoin education and trust-building are key to mass adoption.
Transcript
So, from my experiences, wherever I go and talk to people about Bitcoin, the first question is, is it not a scam? So it’s really a problem of trust, because there are and there have been thousands of scams that use the name Bitcoin for their fraudulent activity, but actually they have nothing to do with Bitcoin in most cases. So scams are a big problem. And also a lot of wrong assumptions that are around, you know, like circulating in mainstream media articles talking about how bad Bitcoin is for the environment or people believing that Bitcoin, that one Bitcoin is like, I don’t know, is it $80,000 at the moment, the market price? Then they think I can’t buy a Bitcoin because it’s much too expensive. So people don’t know that you can use fragments of a Bitcoin satoshis as you of course all know. Then there’s a lot of distractions from the crypto space. A lot of people are only here to trade. They want to make a fast profit. That’s why they invest in altcoins like Cardano or Solana or Dogecoin or whatever they are being called, even Trumpcoin, which is a huge scam basically. So there’s a lot of distraction around and most people don’t know the differences between Bitcoin and all these other thousands of cryptocurrencies. Also, in general, I mean, the incumbents, the banks, the institutions, everyone who is basically profiting from the current system would lose their power and a lot of money in a way. And of course, also, nation state governments are in a way discouraging the use of Bitcoin because they don’t want people to use it as money because this would endanger or threaten the issuance of their own currencies. So governments would have less control over their people. And last but not least, there are ETFs, which are tools that offer shares of Bitcoin. So it’s basically like a stock. You can buy a share of a Bitcoin and very often these shares are not one-to-one backed by real Bitcoin. So the ETF buyers are only having proceeds or profits from profits in Bitcoin but in their own local currency. So it’s a little bit like buying stocks and this also dilutes or increases the supply of Bitcoin in a way. I feel the price of Bitcoin is being suppressed by these movements. Yeah, I think there’s just in general a lot of distrust and then also especially in Western countries, not so much in African countries as I have seen over the last years. There is this split, you know, in the US and in Europe a lot of people see Bitcoin as right-wing money. So it’s the money for the conservatives, for the Republicans and the people on the other side then say, I don’t want to use Bitcoin. It’s Trump coin, meaning they first don’t understand that Bitcoin and Trump coin have nothing to do with each other. And also they still don’t understand that Bitcoin is for anyone. It’s just a tool. And if the right embraces Bitcoin, then they actually have an advantage here. And I always say to anyone, it doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter which political idea you have or which party you support. Bitcoin is for anyone. It can empower you and your friend and your enemy. And that’s why people always or often say Bitcoin is for enemies. That’s what it means actually. So there’s a lot of work to be done to build trust. And that’s also why it’s so important that we in our work are ethical, that we don’t scam people, that we share all information as honestly, as openly as we have it with the people we teach or the tools we build, you know. So there are a lot of factors that play into the thing of Bitcoin not flourishing as others might think it should or as we think it should because we get it in a way. And it’s sad that other people not yet, but that’s exactly why we’re here and why we’re doing what we’re doing.
