The Bitcoin Karen Cycle
Do you remember the “Karen” internet meme? I don’t recall the details, but for those not up to date on almost-recent events, Karen was, and no doubt still is, a chronic whiner/complainer who was caught on video raging at the counter of a convenience store about some trivial inconvenience. The video went viral and Karen had her 15 minutes of fame.
Karen reminds me of all the newly minted Bitcoin critics who crawl out of the woodwork like clockwork approximately every 2 years. These Siskel & Eberts complain about the most common criticisms of Bitcoin as if they were the first gifted people in the world to unmask Bitcoin’s dastardly underbelly. You know the type, those elite but un-informed experts (like me!) who rush to judgment on novel ideas that they’ve only superficially looked into. They’re too lazy for a deep dive and it’s in their self-interest to trash Bitcoin so that it doesn’t destroy their mental model of what hard money is and how Bitcoin is chomping away at that flat-earth model. Nom, nom, nom.
As you might deduce, many pro-Bitcoiners have put forth counter-arguments for each existential risk that the Karen Klan conjures up. Despite the periodic ruckus from the peanut gallery, Bitcoin has marched forward on its mission from god to finally hold the crooked, “capitalize the gains, socialize the losses“, bankstas to account. The grand experiment to destroy the middlemen who stand (backed by force) between you and your money and debase the dollar whenever it’s politically convenient to do so is still going strong.