⸺ Obituary · November 26, 2013 ⸺
“Once You Use Bitcoin You Can’t Go ‘Back’ — And That’s Its Fatal Flaw”
— Wired, Nicholas Weaver
“And, in the greater scheme of things, bitcoin is small: even at a roughly 10 billion dollar market capitalization it is almost irrelevant in financial terms. This is probably roughly the peak market capitalization achieved by Beanie Babies in 1999. There are indeed important and valuable ideas that exist in bitcoin’s design. But bitcoin itself? I believe its volatility and built-in irreversibility will doom it to the ash-heap of history.”
Price at death
$899
Today
$73,594
Resurrection
×81.8
On 2013-11-26, Nicholas Weaver (Professor, UC Berkeley) declared Bitcoin dead via Wired. Bitcoin was trading at ~$899 at the time. The call joins the growing canon of premature obituaries.
The declaration was catalogued on November 26, 2013, when one Bitcoin traded for approximately $899. Since then, Bitcoin has appreciated by 81.8× relative to the price on the day Wired pronounced it finished.