Bitcoin conspiracy theory

It shouldn’t be surprising that the online crypto-currency Bitcoin is a prolific generator of rumors and scams. After all, nobody knows who developed it, few people understand how it works, and its value swings wildly due to nebulous factors controlled by unknown forces. This means, of course, that it’s a topic that’s ripe for conspiracy theories.

So what’s really going on here? As Bitcoin value soared, one financialanalystwrote:

Governments are currently in the process of vetting the cryptocurrency space and using bitcoin as its primary test case … before crushing private cryptocurrencies altogether, then replacing them with one government-sanctioned “bitcoin.”

Other popular Bitcoin conspiracy theories in 2017: that its mysterious inventor is actually the NSA or Elon Musk, that an advanced artificial intelligence created it to take over the world, and that a few “whales” are hoarding Bitcoin to drive up the value of their own holdings.

But the most likely explanation for high Bitcoin value is that it’s a hype-driven bubble that will level off once the public moves on — a speculative asset craze that’s taken place many other times in history.