BITCON
THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT BITCOIN
PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH AMAZON EBOOKS
"When it comes to bitcoin, what you see is not necessarily what you get."
Jeffrey Robinson spent more than a year trekking through "Planet-Bitcoin" to find a digital-something pretending to be a currency; that same digital-something pretending to be a commodity; a political apolitical movement that reeks of a delusional cult; and a technology - unique peer-to-peer transfer system - that happens to be brilliant.He spoke with big players and small players, economists, tech analysts, bankers, cryptographers, digital engineers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, businessmen, regulators, get-rich-quick schemers, wannabes, political anarchists, and the "rock stars" of the eco system - from "Bitcoin Jesus" Roger Ver and now convicted bitcoin felon Charlie Shrem to Overstock's Patrick Byrne and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen - all of whom have a stake in bitcoin's brilliant future or abject failure.
He investigates the great promises made by the "Faithful": How bitcoin will replace fiat; how central bankers are trembling at the feet of this all encompassing digital currency; how bitcoin is the perfect solution to the developing world's unbanked and underbanked; how bitcoin is a speeding freight train bearing down on the dollar's dominance as the world's primary currency; and how bitcoin is wildly successful having gone so viral that it is viral cubed.
By separating the myths from the naked truths, one by one, he concludes they are, for the most part, wildly delusional.
He questions the get-rich-quick scheme of the Winklevoss twins; the rip-off bitcoin wannabe flogged by an off-the-reservation native American; and the illogic behind bitcoin ATMs - "For every bitcoin ATM in the world, there are 1680 condom machines in American gas station toilets." He explains how companies who supposedly "accept" bitcoins don't really want to have anything to do with them.
Writing with typical wit, humor, and his jaundiced eye for cons, scams, pirates, hype, market manipulation, misinformation, outright lies, self-fulfilling Ponzis, sleight of hand and a mob of greater fools, Robinson reveals:
* Punch for punch, the pretend-currency can't stand toe-to-toe with the non-convertible Cuban peso.
* The pretend-commodity is really just a casino chip for a loaded roulette wheel.
* Despite the hype, there are fewer businesses worldwide who "accept" bitcoin than there are piano tuners in Canada.
* Despite the hype, there are fewer people using bitcoins to buy goods and services than there are members enrolled in Kuwait Airways frequent flyer program.
He concludes, "The price of bitcoin is irrelevant. It didn't matter then. It doesn't it matter now. The price is a red herring. What matters is intrinsic value, and when it comes to bitcoin, there is no intrinsic value. "
Izabella Kaminska, writing in The Financial Times (Alphaville): "Sadly, for the Bitcoin faithful — as well as all the other reasonable institutions that seem to have been taken in — the verdict is not good. Robinson reduces the entire phenomenon to a classic swindle. A small cohort of ruthless predators taking advantage, as usual, of the naive and gullible via a carefully constructed and asymmetrical myth, which happens to appeal to those of a certain persuasion, encouraging them to take leave of their senses entirely.
"Part of the fervour is driven by classic get-rich-quick sentiment, but the other and the more sinister part is based on the art of indoctrination, no different to that employed by cults focused on getting people to hand over their hard-earned cash for the sake of reserving themselves a prime slot in heaven and/or the supposed system that comes after this one.
"Most heinous, in Robinson’s assessment, is the fact that the predatory and cultic marketing spiel focuses on the message that “This time is different”, when an objective analysis of the evidence suggests nothing more than a common swindle that only really benefits shadowy non-contributors to the global economy."
Bret King, Bank 2.0: "A book every believer in bitcoin should read - so they know how to fix the problems."
Tim Swanson, "Great Chain of Numbers: "If you are tired of the continuous pumping on Reddit, Twitter and conferences you will likely enjoy his challenges to cliche arguments."
Jonathon Trugman writing in The New York Post: "Bitcoin - A modern-day game of three-card monte, with a little Soduko thrown in, just to add a touch of mystique."
Economist Yanis Varoufakis: "Jeffrey Robinson's BitCon is a book that both Bitcoin fanatics and Bitcoin detractors can only benefit from, as long as they are interested in the promise and limits of the underlying, quite remarkable, algorithm. On the other hand, those wanting to read a book that promotes their own, pre-existing prejudices should look elsewhere. Just like any classic book, that one may even disagree with, Robinson's BitCon packs insights that the prepared and open mind needs to nurture itself."
Dr Gary North, economic historian and associated scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute: “Bitcoins will go down in history as the most spectacular private Ponzi scheme in history. It will dwarf anything dreamed of by Bernard Madoff”.
"If you owned all the bitcoins in the world and offered it to me for $25, I wouldn't take it, because what would I do with them? I'm going to have to sell it to you one way or another. It won't do anything. Apartments will 'produce' rent and farms will produce food. If I have all the bitcoins, I'll be back where [anonymous bitcoin founder Satoshi] was. I don't know if it will go up or down next year, five years or 10 years. But one thing I am sure of is that it does not multiply, it does not produce anything."
- Warren Buffett
