Image: The Bitcoin Angel (The Ecstacy), 2019 by Trevor Jones

FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt – is one of the biggest deterrents for new or would-be ₿itcoiners. Salty no-coiners have latched on to a whole host of wild theories, suspect narratives, and dubious statistics in order to try to persuade you that buying Bitcoin is a bad idea. 

AmberApp believes buying Bitcoin is always a good idea, and we’re here to fight the FUD. In this article, we explore the Top 8 favourites of the cartoonish FUDdsters and deliver a swift rebuttal for each. 

Saddle up! 🤠

1. Bitcoin Uses Too Much Energy ⚡

This magnificently inaccurate tweet from the sanctimonious bullies at the World Economic Forum is from 2017. Having lived through 2020—what a year!—we all know that this prediction from the shifty WEF did not come true. Not even close. Yet still, the FUD that Bitcoin will eventually consume all of the world’s energy is remarkably common.

Bitcoin uses less energy than clothes dryers alone, and that’s American households only. Run the numbers; there are roughly 130m US households (US Census), and the average household uses 12,000 KWh/year (EPA). Clothes dryers make up 6% of household energy use, which is around 720 KWh/year (EPA).

720KWh * 130M = 93.8 TWh. Bitcoin uses ~90 TWh*

Michael Saylor says it best: Bitcoin uses less than 0.5% of the world’s energy to secure hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of value for millions (soon billions) of people all over the world. That seems like a worthwhile trade-off. Confirmed by the fact that this is several times less than the energy used by electrical devices left on standby, again, in the US alone. Talk about waste. Geez…

2. Bitcoin is Bad for the Environment 🌏

Still, in 2022, major legacy publications like The Guardian continue publishing deceitful pieces addressing Bitcoin’s negative environmental impact. This latest bit of biased misinformation is entirely unoriginal and all too familiar FUD stemming from Chinese miners’ historical use of coal power in their mining operations. 

In 2022, Bitcoin miners reportedly use nearly two-thirds renewable energy, a figure higher than almost any other industry or national economy: Brazil uses just 2% renewables, with the US at 32%, and the EU at 44%. The idea that Bitcoin uses dirty energy to drive hashrate all time highs is factually untrue.

Over and over again, Nic Carter, Lyn Alden and Michael Saylor have all explained how Bitcoin uses “stranded (non-rival) energy”, which would otherwise be wasted or be unused, is helping to maximise our use of existing energy resources and reduce the strain on renewables for other uses. Besides, Jervon’s paradox makes any complaints about more or less energy use an impossible proposition anyway.

3. Bitcoin is Old Tech; Bitcoin is Myspace 👴🏼

The idea that Bitcoin is in some way primitive implies that there are more important problems that Bitcoin can’t solve. Sure, $1,000,000 JPEGs aren’t stored on the Bitcoin blockchain. But which is more important—a Bored Ape, or the soundest money ever created? Stay tuned to the AmberApp blog for more on this, soon.

4. The Government Will Ban Bitcoin 🏛

They’ve tried, they really have, but Bitcoin just keeps on going, with one new block mined every ten minutes throughout whatever turmoil comes its way. Case in point, Bitcoin was recently banned in China, but – apart from a temporary drop in hashrate – the ban didn’t do much at all: miners simply moved elsewhere, and now the network is back achieving all time highs, in terms of hash-rate.

So long as the Bitcoin network is active somewhere on Earth, it will keep producing blocks. And with El Salvador making Bitcoin legal tender, it’s more likely that a country will adopt Bitcoin and use it, rather than ban it: even anti-crypto India recently legalised BTC, clearly reading the bright orange writing on the wall.

5. Bitcoin is Used for Money Laundering 💸

This bit of FUD is only slightly true. The problem is that it conveniently ignores other, much more worrying facts about criminality and money laundering. A recent Chainalysis report did indeed show that in 2021, up to $8.6 billion was laundered using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

However, compare that fact to a 2020 investigation, which showed how banksters from JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and a load of other financial institutions helped criminals launder an enourmous $2 Trillion between 1999 and 2017. Bitcoin didn’t even exist for the first 10 years of that period! 

6. Bitcoin is… white supremacist? 🤦🏽‍♀️

Check out this Tweet, if you want some real time wasting laughs. Dave – the Elmer Fudd of FUD – Troy does an impressively admirable job linking Bitcoin to “white supremacist groups” by misquoting sources and making connections that simply aren’t there. Troy’s efforts are the Tweet storm equivalent of the ‘Everyone I Don’t Like is Hitler’; A child’s guide to online political discussion meme. It’s the type of thing that could only make sense in a clown world… oh, wait…

I actually spent over an hour investigating these claims. I must admit, I was ultimately impressed by Dave’s powerful imagination. In reality, Bitcoin adoption will in fact be a net benefit to places like Africa, and there’s evidence to suggest that minorities are more likely to own Bitcoin in the US. But, no really… well done, Dave: 👑 🤡

7. It’s Too Late to Buy Bitcoin ⏳

The people who tell you it’s too late to buy Bitcoin now are usually the same people who said it was too late to buy Bitcoin in 2013, and again 2017. lol. These are the sort of people who tend to be financially illiterate, risk averse, and perpetually frightened that they’ve “missed the boat” of maximum potential upside. Of course, it’s natural to be frightened, but such fear couldn’t be any more unfounded. 

The chart above, created by popular Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo, shows that Bitcoin has roughly the same number of users as the Internet pre-2000. Framing it this way, it is far from “too late” to get in on the future money of the world. 

Interestingly, Willy notes that Bitcoin is growing way faster than the Internet, and so it may really be “too late” soon enough… Perhaps you should get some, in case it catches on. Get started today with AmberApp.

8. I Can’t Afford to Buy a Whole Bitcoin 🌗

Beware the curse of unit bias. Sure, buying a whole Bitcoin all at once is difficult for most people. But, you don’t need to buy a whole coin right away. One coin is made up of 100 million smaller units called “sats”, meaning you can start by buying a few dollars’ worth of Bitcoin at a time, if you want.

AmberApp is purposely designed to help you accumulate and save in Bitcoin, by stacking small amounts over time. Automated features, like Buy the Schiff and dollar cost averaging (DCA) are proven to be one of the most cost effective ways to buy Bitcoin over time. See how DCA works using the AmberApp investment calculator.

So… now that the most misinformed FUD has been knocked down and out, download the AmberApp and start saving in ₿itcoin in less than 90 seconds. 

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