"Bitcoin is Harry; CBDCs are Voldemort"

We stand at the crossroads of two visions of the future?

Both will digitize money.?But as with VHS vs Beta, CDs vs DAT, only one can win.

The fulfilment of one vision gives power to the people

The fulfilment of the other vision give power to the people in Central Banks

The injustices of the Global Financial Crisis, where bankers were bailed out by Central bankers printing money, but the people suffered led to the creation of Bitcoin. (Little wonder Stella Assange calls Bitcoin "the real Occupy movement")

To start with, Central Bankers dismissed it. But in 2018, they realized Bitcoin was a serious threat.?

These three Central Banks began working together to do what an industry threatened with disruption always does throughout history; put out as much misinformation about the disruptor (Bitcoin) as possible.?

ECB focused mainly messages designed to resonate with traditional investors: such as “No Intrinsic Value”, “Too volatile”, “Failed as a payment system”, “Regulatory concerns”, “Speculative Asset, not an Investment”, “On a road to irrelevance”

BIS designed messages Nation State leaders would resonate with such as:

"Inherent structural flaws",? “threatens financial stability”, “Failed as Money”, “Used by criminals”

https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap138.pdf

But DNB (The Central Bank of the Netherlands) had arguably the most important role of all: create antagonism towards Bitcoin in the general public. All three Central Banks knew that a skeptical public would slow adoption. So they went for the most emotive attack vector of the time, creating the message “Bitcoin’s success endangers our climate goals”

Later that year, DNB employee published a 5-page commentary (an academic perspective piece that does not have to include empirical research or go through a full peer review process).?

With the likely help of some PR work behind the scenes, the commentary was a massive hit: coverage of Bitcoin & energy lept from single figures in 2017? to 400 articles in 2018!

But not only that, as we can see from this Litmaps chart below, de Vries’ paper was “patient zero” for the first generation of all academic work on Bitcoin and Energy.?

The method he used to claim that Bitcoin's environmental damage was a growing concern was his fundamentally flawed "energy use per transactions" method (Bitcoin energy use does not come from its transactions, therefore it can scale transaction volume exponentially without increasing emissions).

de Vries' metric has now been debunked in 4 academic journals?

• Masanet et al, 2019

• Dittmar et al, 2019

• Sedlmeir et al, 2020
• Sai and Vraken, 2023

The entirety of de Vries' work was systematically debunked by Sai and Vranken in late 2023

But it (the truth) didn’t matter. By 2021, 60% of the population believed Bitcoin was bad for the environment.?

But then something remarkable started happening.?

First, the academic community started researching Bitcoin and energy more deeply, finding on almost all occasions that not only was bitcoin not harming the environment, but it was able to help the environment, climate action and the renewable transition at scale, in ways no other technology could. As of today 14 of the last 16 peer reviewed papers on Bitcoin and energy endorse this.?

Next, sustainability magazines started researching Bitcoin more deeply, concluding that Bitcoin was uniquely placed to mitigate landfill methane, accelerate the renewable transition, stabilize grids, lower electricity prices and prevent the waste of renewable resources. 9 sustainability magazines a row have come to this conclusion

Finally, the mainstream media caught on. They stopped (for the most part) publishing the flawed research from de Vries and began publishing the numerous ways Bitcoin aided climate action (12 mainstream media outlets are now doing this, with 85% of media coverage on Bitcoin and the environment now being positive)

ECB, BIS, DNB and the IMF will stop at nothing to try to prevent Bitcoin’s success because ... a world where Bitcoin is widely adopted as international digital currency does not require them.

However, for the first time in a long time, a grassroots movement has the chance of standing tall in the face of a powerful force and through non-violence, win.

Bitcoin has been not only falsely characterized as "using too much energy", but recently critics have tried to label it as a tool of the political right. Such a label is supported by the data as well as the "Bitcoin is bad for the environment" narrative: it isn't!

A 2024 survey of 3,538 adults in US showed that Bitcoin owners looked pretty much like the non-bitcoin owners: covering the entire political spectrum and mostly moderate. "They were still a bit more prone to the political extremes on both liberal and the conservative, than non-owners. (Statistically significant but small)." source

Much of what you have heard about Bitcoin has been presented to you because that is what the disrupted would like you to believe about Bitcoin. This is not a new phenomenon, it is one that happens with every disruptive technology. The Horse&Buggy industry attacked the Automobile industry, print media attacked the Internet.

When choosing Bitcoin you are not just selecting a valuable asset, you are voting for a digital future where the people have more power, and Central Bankers and Bankers have less.

Bitcoin is the real Occupy movement !