Despite Bitcoin‘s revolutionary design and its ambitious vision to fundamentally alter the traditional financial system, skepticism about its future remains among some critics. However, data indicates that the number of times Bitcoin has been declared “dead” peaked in 2017 and has since rapidly decreased.
According to 99Bitcoins, which has been tracking declarations of Bitcoin’s demise since 2010, there have been only 7 such proclamations in 2023. The first death notice, issued when Bitcoin was trading at $0.23, stated it would either remain an innovation forever or die out faster than one could blink—an iconic statement at the time.
Since then, the volume of vocal critics of Bitcoin has begun to wane, with the low number of death proclamations in a full year being a clear indicator of this shift. Notable figures like Chamath Palihapitiya, one of the first Facebook investors, and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon have been among those declaring Bitcoin “dead” this year, with Palihapitiya claiming “crypto is dead in America” on a podcast and Dimon labeling Bitcoin a “fraudulent frenzy” on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Data from 99Bitcoins shows that Bitcoin was most frequently declared dead in 2017, coinciding with its price surge to $20,000. That year, Bitcoin was declared dead 124 times, and in 2018, as the price fell, the count was 98.
Looking at the trend post-2017-2018, the number of death proclamations has been decreasing, with 41 occurrences in 2019, 14 in 2020, 47 in 2021, and 27 in 2022. The data clearly indicates that the peak of Bitcoin’s death notices was in 2017, with a significant decline since then.