When people ask me what music I like, I often answer “from the '80s.” It's not the only thing I like or listen to, but to be honest, I don't usually identify with what most people my age listen to.

Everyone has their opinion and their tastes. Now, maintaining a constant attack posture against what you don't like could be showing that there is something behind it.

Something similar happens with Bitcoin. Even more so when talking about open source software that puts the traditional financial system in check.

There are two reasons that explain this behavior on the part of an individual:

• There is no knowledge about Bitcoin and opinions are given without knowing; either
• It is known and for some particular interest it is convenient that it be shown to the world as a detractor of bitcoin, even though it may secretly be holding the asset in a cold wallet. There's not much more to it than that.

I take this opportunity to bring you six famous people from different careers and fields who have decided to turn their backs on Bitcoin. It may be that they have always changed their speech or that, from a specific moment onwards, the latter is even more striking.

I'm going to anticipate: since the total list in my mind is large, we will see if we can continue with a second part of more names. So, if you notice that some classic detractors are missing, it will be because they will come later reloaded!

And since we're on the music side, I recommend you continue this reading by listening to the instrumental version of Woke Up This Morning, the intro to the great Sopranos series. It will give you a magical touch.

Paul Krugman

American economist. Detractor of the Internet in the early 2000s, believing it would have the same impact as the fax. Nobel Prize in Economics since October 2008, a key month for every bitcoiner. Did you have it? Well. Keep giving surprises.

In countless interviews, as an editor for the New York Times, he has mentioned Bitcoin disparagingly, even creating a note with the name Bitcoin Is Evil. For him, it does not have solid fundamentals, it is merely speculative like a bubble and is used only for illicit operations.

In an interview on Business Insider, he mentioned that “fiat money has value because it is backed by men with guns,” while Bitcoin does not, and therefore has no value.

And while we were hopeful that he would take some pity on the decentralized network after Venmo, the American payment service, blacklisted it in 2023, it was simply a false alarm.

Could it be true that you have really missed out on accumulating even some BTC in all this time, having known it since its inception?

Dan Pena

Businessman. Multimillionaire. He is rarely seen in casual clothing. He usually shouts a lot and more than once he has appeared on social media giving extreme financial and personal development advice in excerpts from conferences he has given around the world.

And what did he say about Bitcoin? Depends on the day. On occasions he has mentioned that "Vladimir Putin himself is its creator, through a conspiracy to destroy the economy of the United States in the world." Other times he has been mysterious, saying that “when the true creator comes to light, bitcoin will go to zero, in a microsecond!”

Furthermore, he has mentioned that he “exactly announced” the fall of BTC after the 2017 ATH and “no one listened to it.” Apparently, he could not predict the ATH of 2021 or this 2024.

Warren Buffett

“Rat poison. ” This is how the Berkshire Hathaway leader, Warren Buffett, has defined Bitcoin on multiple occasions, who knew how to remain in the top ten of the richest people in the world for decades, according to the Forbes magazine ranking.

Recently, he lost his right-hand man, Charlie Munger, just shy of his 100th birthday, who, by the way, had spoken in a similar way about Bitcoin.

It alleges that bitcoin (with a lowercase letter) is not a company stock, it is not a debt security, it is not a commodity or any other type of security, so it represents nothing more than speculation.

It is said that the Oracle of Omaha never invests in things he does not understand, and this could be the case. Why risk it now at 93 years old!

Janet Yellen

Current Secretary of the US Treasury, having been president and vice president of the Federal Reserve System of the same country.

He was an indirect participant in one of the great Bitcoin memes derived from the “Buy Bitcoin” sign behind his back, when he opposed auditing the FED in the US Capitol during 2017. Recently, the sign was auctioned in more than 1 million dollars in BTC.

Giving us some hits like “Beenance” (when she wanted to name Binance, in the cause in which CZ stepped away from the position of CEO of the exchange), Yellen has looked for multiple opportunities to denigrate Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market in her speeches, calling them highly dangerous and speculative.

But it seems that there is light at the end of the road: he has recognized that Bitcoin “could represent an improvement in certain aspects of the financial system.” Who knows!

Nassim Taleb 

This is one of the most striking cases, of the group of those who spoke well about Bitcoin and suddenly stopped doing so. Better said: rather than “they stopped doing it”, they began to speak badly. But very bad.

I present to you Nassim Taleb, Lebanese researcher, author of the successful book The Black Swan in 2007, with which he is said to have predicted the world crisis of 2008.

His relationship with Bitcoin has been conflictive, since he went from writing the prologue of “ The Bitcoin Pattern” (Saifedean Ammous bestseller) to issuing comments such as: “Bitcoin is a financial tumor that will disappear.”

His change of position was radical and has come as a great surprise and cause for criticism from the bitcoiner community.

Christine Lagarde

The current president of the European Central Bank and former head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, cannot be missing from this list.

Known for holding highly relevant positions in international organizations, for strongly promoting the development of the European Union's CBDC (digital euro) and for having a son who "supposedly" lost all his money betting on shitcoins in the cryptocurrency market, Lagarde is a clear icon of the status quo and the traditional financial system.

On occasions, he has spoken negatively about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, emphasizing that they are worthless, that they do not have any type of support, that they are highly volatile assets and their market should be strongly regulated to “avoid disappointments” like the one that had his son.

Without a doubt, it defends its “pro-fiat” position, trying to improve the reputation of a Central Bank that already restricts cash operations of certain amounts in order to eliminate cash in the long term, even when the monetary authority denies this.