Bitcoin is often confronted with various criticisms (about speculation, volatility, money laundering, terrorism, pollution, etc.). However, there is a vast body of data and analysis rebutting these accusations item by item, which is easily accessible on the internet to anyone who takes the trouble to research such criticisms, or objections, to Bitcoin.
So why do the same accusations come back tirelessly, without taking into account these refutations which have been published for years? The intellectual laziness of some denigrators does not explain everything. Nor do the obvious biases of those whose power or business model is threatened by the rise of cryptocurrencies.
There is a more fundamental reason, of an ideological nature.
In “The Open Society And Its Enemies” (1945), the great philosopher Karl Popper recalls that civilization is the progressive recognition of a few major principles: equal rights, freedom of opinion, intellectual pluralism, critical rationalism, property rights, individual responsibility, mutual tolerance, exchange, and cooperation. The “open society”…
