Bitcoin Under $1,000: 33 Wrong Predictions, 20 Critics

At $127, apparently, the game was over. At $82,315 today, I’m still waiting for the closing credits.

By 2013-11-05, Bitcoin was $253.69, and the mood had moved from farewell to ridicule. Financial Journalist Joe Weisenthal delivered his Business Insider verdict:

Bitcoin is a joke.

I’ll give that verdict this much: $253.69 then and $82,315 today make a memorable joke. Just not the one the headline intended.

Two weeks later, on 2013-11-19, Bitcoin cost $572.67. Editor Timothy Lavin brought the funeral mood back with this Bloomberg headline:

Bitcoin is still doomed.

I admire the workload carried by “still.” It had $572.67 to explain then; it has $82,315 to explain now.

A week later, 2013-11-26, the price was $948.41. Economics Editor Edward Hadas made the forecast explicit in The New York Times:

A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

Helpful labeling, I’ll grant you. “A Prediction” leaves no doubt about what I’m comparing with $948.41 then and $82,315 today. No room to call it a weather report.

Then came a deadline. On 2013-12-16, Bitcoin stood at $683.84. Finance Professor Mark T. Williams supplied this Business Insider forecast:

Bitcoin Will Crash To $10 By Mid-2014

Without a mid-2014 price, I’m not grading that deadline. But look at the comparison I can make: $683.84 then, a $10 target, and $82,315 today. The target looks lonely down there.

Eleven days later, on 2013-12-27, Bitcoin was $727.83. The mood turned moral. Nobel Prize Economist & Substack Columnist Paul Krugman appeared with this passage from his New York Times article:

BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.

Price cannot settle that claim about political purpose. Still, I note that the alleged weapon was $727.83 then and $82,315 today. Not exactly a clearance sale.

Before leaving 2013-12-27, with Bitcoin at $727.83, let me show you Krugman’s shorter verdict:

Bitcoin is Evil.

Morality isn’t something I can price. But $727.83 then versus $82,315 today gives this sermon a curious distinction: the sin got considerably more expensive.

How many farewells did Bitcoin need in 2014?

By 2014-03-04, Bitcoin was $661.79, and the obituary desk had added a qualifier. Editor Joe Carter offered this Acton headline:

Bitcoin is (Nearly) Dead

Those parentheses are doing the work here. I’d hang on to them: $661.79 then versus $82,315 today is a lot for “nearly” to shelter.

The next day, 2014-03-05, the price was again $661.79. Carter’s warning at Acton became religious advice:

(...)Christians should avoid Bitcoin “at all cost”(...).

Theology aside, I’m struck by the wording. With $661.79 then and $82,315 today, “at all cost” practically volunteers for the price comparison.

On 2014-03-06, Bitcoin was $625.83, and Journalist Andrew Leonard supplied three shades of disappointment in Salon. First came the official farewell:

Sorry, libertarians: Your dream of a Bitcoin paradise is officially dead and gone

Which office certifies a dead paradise? I couldn’t tell you. The price beside this certification was $625.83, against $82,315 today. I’d ask for the paperwork to be checked.

In that same 2014-03-06 article, with Bitcoin still $625.83, Leonard described the premise:

Bitcoin has always been viewed as a currency of resistance -- a way to wrest control over the essence of money away from governments, central bankers and Wall Street.

That is a description, not a price forecast; I’m not disguising it as one. Still, the $625.83 currency being discussed at its own farewell now costs $82,315. An awkward guest to have seated beside the obituary.

Leonard’s final passage from the same date and price pronounced the excitement finished:

Bitcoin isn't cyberpunk fantasy and it isn't a Thomas Pynchon novel. It's dull. The thrill is gone. And that's why people are so mad.

Taste survives any price comparison. Even so, I find $625.83 beside $82,315 a surprisingly lively illustration of “dull.”

Seven days later, on 2014-03-13, Bitcoin cost $628.80. Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett brought a different comparison to CNBC:

It's a mirage basically. It's a very effective way of transmitting money and you can do it anonymously and all that. A check is a way of transmitting money too. Are checks worth a whole lot of money just because they can transmit money? I hope bitcoin becomes a better way of doing it but you can replicate it a bunch of different ways. The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view.

Market price and intrinsic value are not the same argument. Even so, I find the $628.80-to-$82,315 price tag unusually substantial for this particular mirage.

On 2014-03-14, Bitcoin was again $628.80. Buffett’s next verdict was considerably shorter:

Bitcoin is a decentralized ponzi.

A higher price alone cannot disprove a fraud allegation. I can still compare $628.80 then with $82,315 today. The accusation is brief; the distance between those prices is not.

Later in this 2014-03-14 scene, at $628.80, I find the warning in this CNBC appearance:

“Stay away from Bitcoin. It's a mirage.”

“Stay away” leaves little room for interpretation. Neither does my price comparison: $628.80 then, $82,315 now. That mirage has an inconveniently legible price tag.

On 2014-03-15, Bitcoin’s price was again $628.80, and Buffett’s warning appeared again:

“Stay away from Bitcoin. It's a mirage.”

That completes the three-date, $628.80 streak I mentioned. I keep looking from the repeated warning to today’s $82,315. Apparently, telling a mirage to disappear is not enough.

By 2014-07-25, Bitcoin was $623.65. The dismissals were still coming. John Q. Public supplied this New York Post statement:

Bitcoin is a joke perpetuated on a gullible investing public.

My target is the verdict, not the public. At $623.65 then and $82,315 today, this particular joke has spent a remarkable amount of time refusing to end.

Alongside that 2014-07-25 dismissal, with Bitcoin at $623.65, came this response:

Thank you so much for calling all this bitcoin nonsense exactly what it is — a scam.

Again, price is not a fraud investigation. But I would hesitate to call a $623.65 dismissal settled while today’s $82,315 keeps interrupting the thank-you speech.

On 2014-11-05, Bitcoin was down to $338.38. Professor of Finance and Economics Kevin Dowd spoke at CATO’S 32ND ANNUAL MONETARY CONFERENCE, supplying this characterization:

Bitcoin is a dream come true for anarchist, criminals and proponents of private money.

Who uses Bitcoin is not something I can infer from its price. What I can put beside this description is $338.38 then and $82,315 today. Even the disapproving dreams have become expensive.

Dowd’s same-day conclusion at $338.38 removed the ambiguity:

(...) Therefore Bitcoin must collapse.

I keep coming back to “must.” From $338.38 then to $82,315 today, Bitcoin seems not to have understood that this was an instruction.

By 2014-12-17, Bitcoin cost $310.75. Political Blogger Kevin Drum offered a forecast in which even success was fatal, writing in Mother Jones:

I’d say Bitcoin is doomed in the medium-term future. Farrell is right: it can be a bit of a curiosity, but if it ever enjoys wider success, that very success will kill it.

I see the trap: fail and you fail; succeed and you die. The $310.75-to-$82,315 comparison seems to have wandered out through another door.

Was Bitcoin supposed to survive 2015?

On 2015-01-20, Bitcoin stood at $225.98. The mood was not merely pessimistic; the ending was presented as unavoidable. YouTuber Arduino Tronic supplied this video title:

Bitcoin to Die - its unavoidable. The death of crypto and the blockchain.

“Unavoidable” deserves a pause. I have $225.98 then and $82,315 now in front of me. For something with no way out, Bitcoin seems to have found quite an exit.

On 2015-02-04, Bitcoin was $216.77. Economist Robert Nielsen delivered a broader dismissal on his personal blog, beginning with this argument about access and need:

The idea that desperately poor people with limited access to basic necessities will have the technology and the expertise (or need) to use bitcoin is laughable. It is delusional to believe that Bitcoin will be saved by people without access to running water. The people of the Third World have bigger concerns than a decentralised peer-to-peer electronic currency.

Running water and access to Bitcoin cannot be read off a price. I’m making a narrower comparison: $216.77 when this dismissal appeared, $82,315 today. The argument about Bitcoin needing rescue has acquired a difficult sequel.

Elsewhere in that 2015-02-04 article, at $216.77, Nielsen offered a diagnosis:

One of the signs that Bitcoin is dying is that hardly anyone actually uses the currency.

Usage figures would be needed to answer the usage claim. I have prices instead: $216.77 then, $82,315 today. They don’t measure adoption, but they do make this deathbed scene rather hard to stage.

His final passage from that 2015-02-04 scene, with Bitcoin at $216.77, announced the verdict:

Bitcoin is essentially a massive bet that fiat currencies (especially the Dollar) will suffer high inflation, if not hyperinflation. As an economic experiment its certainly interesting, but the verdict is clear, it failed.

Clear verdicts are convenient. I like to put $216.77 next to $82,315 before accepting them, though. This one could have used a little more uncertainty and a little less past tense.

Five days later, on 2015-02-09, Bitcoin cost $221.81. Author Jeffrey Robinson gave IBTimes UK a ten-year comparison:

I say 10 years from now we will all have digital currencies - fiat currencies - and bitcoin will be remembered probably much like Pogs and Sinclair's C5.

Nostalgia was the destination; $221.81 was Bitcoin’s price. I’m only pricing Bitcoin here, and at $82,315 today it makes a rather expensive resident of the remember-that drawer.

Staying with 2015-02-09, and Bitcoin at $221.81, Robinson added this assessment:

The whole thing is a pump and dump

Manipulation allegations need more than a price comparison to settle them. Still, I’d leave room beside “the whole thing” for $221.81 then and $82,315 today. That tidy summary has some untidy company.

On 2015-04-06, Bitcoin was $253.18. Former CEO of Bitreserve Anthony Watson supplied a five-year survival guess reported by Coinfox:

I’ll be surprised if bitcoin is here in five years, it's a means to an end.

Surprise seems appropriate. Bitcoin was $253.18 for that prediction and is $82,315 today. I’d say the proposed disappearance has left rather a conspicuous object behind.

By 2015-07-29, Bitcoin cost $284.65. Nobel Prize Economist & Substack Columnist Paul Krugman returned, this time with a bubble assessment:

Bitcoin looks like it really is a bubble in multiple senses.

Bubbles aren’t disproved by an $82,315 price. I’m simply setting that beside the $284.65 verdict. “Multiple senses” leaves plenty of interpretive room; the price comparison takes up a fair bit of it.

On 2015-09-08, Bitcoin was $237.82. Fintech Venture Capitalist Pascal Bouvier dispensed with qualifiers in a Medium post:

Bitcoin is dead

No parentheses to rescue this one. I have $237.82 beside the death notice and $82,315 beside today. A follow-up examination seems overdue.

Why was Bitcoin still getting funerals in 2016?

On 2016-01-16, Bitcoin cost $382.30. Writer Keith Parkins brought a familiar fable to his Medium headline:

Bitcoin: The Emperor’s New Clothes

Wardrobe criticism cannot be settled with a price. But I do find $382.30 then versus $82,315 today an awkward fitting for this particular fable.

Two days later, on 2016-01-18, Bitcoin stood at $368.77. Technology Researcher Vivek Wadhwa supplied another explicit farewell in The Washington Post:

R.I.P. Bitcoin. It’s Time To Move On.

Moving on did happen, at least in the comparison I’m making: $368.77 then, $82,315 today. Not quite the movement the funeral instructions had in mind.

My last stop is 2016-04-18, with Bitcoin at $428 in the rounded overview—$428.10 in the individual price pairing. Co-founder of Wise (ex-TransferWise) Taavet Hinrikus delivered this Yahoo Finance interview verdict:

Bitcoin, I think we can say, is dead. There is no traction, no one is using bitcoin. The bitcoin experiment, I think we can say, is over.

Adoption figures would be needed to answer the usage claim. What I can show you is $428.10 then and $82,315 today. “I think we can say” might have benefited from another moment’s thought before “over.”

What did Bitcoin cost while the obituaries piled up?

I’ve kept the table’s quote labels short; each links to the corresponding quotation. “Change to today” shows the supplied price endpoints, not a calculated investment return.

Our take: I don’t need to pretend that an $82,315 price answers every argument about Bitcoin’s usefulness, politics or intrinsic value. It doesn’t. My objection is to the certainty of the endings: dead, finished, doomed, over. Across these 33 quotes, Bitcoin’s average price was $463—178x lower than today. That is not a forecast from me. It is the awkward sequel to theirs. Thirty-three farewells, and the guest of honor still hasn’t left.