• Accusation: prejudice and resentment against cryptocurrencies
• Crypto criticism: Comparisons lag, background information is missing
• Numerous passages can be refuted using data
The recently published ARD article “What remains of the crypto magic?” proves how much the reporting about Bitcoin, Ethereum and Co. will still be full of prejudices in 2023, writes BTC-ECHO and takes a look at some text passages. The article contained both false and misleading biased statements.
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Well-known criticisms of cryptocurrencies
Basically, the author of the ARD article goes into well-known crypto criticism without substantiating them: fraud, exploitation, climate damage, computing problems, volatility, crime and rip-off.
In numerous places in the text, the author proves little background knowledge, for example on the verifiability of cyber currency courses. He paints a picture of crypto investors as gamblers with criminal tendencies. For example in this text passage: “People in particular seem to be completely taken with cryptocurrencies[…]who invest money cryptically and are therefore interested in the system. Also, some early “gamblers” and traders report ‘Fabulous Wins’ just under the heading ‘Fabulous Wins – Real Losses’.
The author then goes into the German OneCoin fraud scandal, which is being negotiated before the Munich Regional Court, so that the reader could get the impression that the OneCoinPonzi scheme it is a cryptocurrency – comparable to Bitcoin – that has been exposed as a fraud. BTC-ECHO sees the author’s clear intention in mixing Bitcoin and OneCoin to present the crypto sector as the only fast-ball system and writes: “This comparison makes about as much sense as warning against stocks, because investors have lost a lot of money through Wirecard or Enron have lost.”
Elsewhere, the ARD article uses a similar logic when quoting a currency expert at Swiss bank Sarasin on the increased risk of cryptocurrencies. Compared to all other investment options, cryptocurrencies would “still hold up remarkably well”. “This indicates that Bitcoin & Co could be overvalued, so their current value is threatened,” read the ARD article. Here a connection between an alleged stability of cryptocurrencies (in general) and an overvaluation is made. BTC-ECHO simply replies: “One can only hope that the expert is not a portfolio manager.” Other points of criticism that the author of the crypto-magic article makes can be refuted or rationalized relatively easily using rate tables, transaction numbers, logs and statistics – including: “non-verifiability” of transactions promotes money laundering and criminal activities, supposedly opaque price movements, volatility, calculation errors or energy consumption.
Bitcoin criticism: lumped together
The Swiss YouTuber Leon Zeh also addresses the ARD article in his YouTube video on his channel “Your Bitcoin Academy”.
The criticism points in a similar direction to the BTC article. Among other things, he explains the background to the OneCoin pyramid scheme, which was advertised with the slogan “Bitcoin Killer”, and goes into the energy consumption and resources of the Bitcoin miners.
Before the BTC editorial team offers to provide editors with background knowledge on the field of cryptocurrencies for their articles in the article “Beware of the ARD anti-Bitcoin contribution”, it is summarized: Of course there are enough approaches to criticize the crypto space. It’s also “perfectly okay to find cryptocurrencies stupid.” However, the present article shines with ignorance and quotes from crypto opponents.
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