⸺ Obituary · December 10, 2018 ⸺
“How Low Will Bitcoin Now Go?”
— The Conversation, Lee Smales
“Bitcoin also fails to meet the criteria of a currency. Its the price movements are too volatile to be a unit of account. The transaction capacity of the Blockchain is too limited for it to be a medium of exchange. Nor does it appear to be a good store of value. Since it produces no income, has limited scarcity value, and few people are willing to use Bitcoin as currency, it is even possible that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.”
Price at death
$3,447
Today
$73,594
Resurrection
×21.3
On 2018-12-10, Lee Smales (Professor, University of Western Australia) declared Bitcoin dead via The Conversation. Bitcoin was trading at ~$3,447 at the time. The call joins the growing canon of premature obituaries.
The declaration was catalogued on December 10, 2018, when one Bitcoin traded for approximately $3,447. Since then, Bitcoin has appreciated by 21.3× relative to the price on the day The Conversation pronounced it finished.