It has been precisely 13 years since The Economist, one of the most well-known business media outlets, wrote off the cryptocurrency in its notorious piece, according to famed Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo.
Published on October 21, 2011, the report asserted that Bitcoin was “in trouble” following its sharp decline below $3 from its peak of $33.
The now-defunct American pop culture website Gawker was largely responsible for the first Bitcoin bubble to appear in June 2011. Following Gawker’s exposé on the notorious Silk Road dark web bazaar, the coin gained a lot of interest. The first cryptocurrency exchanges launched around the same time, making it considerably simpler for the typical person to purchase Bitcoin.
However, a sharp decline in price caught investors who were keen to board the Bitcoin bandwagon off guard. It then plummeted to just over $2 in December 2011, dealing a severe blow to the original cryptocurrency’s early enthusiasts.
The Economist report said that it was unclear what caused the Bitcoin fall. It also referred to the initial Bitcoin craze as a “speculative bubble.”
The essay has, of course, not held up well over time. While establishing the groundwork for a new asset class that has expanded into a multi-trillion dollar sector, Bitcoin ultimately emerged as the best-performing asset of the decade.
According to CoinGecko statistics, the price of Bitcoin is $67,121 at the time of writing. The cryptocurrency reached a top of about $74,000 earlier this year.
According to Rizzo, since the essay was written 13 years ago, Bitcoin has increased by almost 3,000,000%.
